Owning and operating a small plane like a Cessna, Piper or Cirrus is an amazing experience and completely worth doing as a hobby if it’s something you can afford but what about commuting? Is it worth trying to fly for travel instead of driving or commercial aviation? Let’s take a look.
Cost to Fly Commercial
The cost to fly commercial is cheap at about $0.17/mile which means nothing will beat commercial in long range travel unless you are trying to buy tickets on short notice, premium tickets or around holidays. Everything changes with premium pricing which could make Commercial far more expensive due to the class you choose and when you choose to fly.
Time is the great equalizer, it takes about 3-4 hours of extra travel time to drive to a larger airport, check in, go through security and wait to board. This includes the time it takes to get to you destination as smaller airports tent to be up to 30 minutes closer to you than a larger commercial hub. Driving takes no extra time and flying yourself is about 45 minutes extra including a 15 minute preflight.
Cost to Drive
Generally driving a car that gets about 25MPG with normal maintenance costs of about $0.097 per mile costs about $0.30/mile to drive. This means driving will nearly always sit right above the airlines in cost since the general cost per mile with airlines is $0.17/mile. What’s not great it the time is takes to drive. At an average of 60 MPH you aren’t getting anywhere fast. That’s being extremely nice to cars since the real average road speed is 33MPH but I’ll assume you are not just driving around town. Commercial and Private flying overcome cars in terms of time to destination within a few miles because of this slow speed but you can leave anytime you want.
Cost To Fly yourself in a Small Plane
Now what we wan to know the most, small planes. A small plane that flies a casual 150 MPH with a $0.13/mile maintenance costs will be the most expensive way to travel at all times with a single occupant. This does take into account the gas burn just as the car travel did. This means that unless you are buying 3 plane tickets which would triple the cost of commercial flight, it’s more cost effective to travel commercial.
The Small Plane Sweet Spot
If you fall into the sweet spot, flying your own small plan makes perfect sense. If you are taking multiple people in your plane and flying 100 – 500 miles, you are in the perfect sweet spot for flying yourself. You are overcoming the commercial plane ticket costs and saving time by not having to deal with travel to a larger airport and all the early arrival and security time loss. The sheer speed of the commercial flight will make up for that time cost after about 500 miles. If this is you as it is for my small family, flying yourself for 500 mile or less trips makes perfect sense.
Flexibility & Comfort
The great equalizer is flexibility and comfort. My wife and want to bring our large dog on trips and we want to travel on our own timeline, without the hassle of a large airport. When you have a young child, a large dog and all the stress that can add, you quickly come to dislike commercial flights. Since it’s impossibly to bring large dogs on commercial flights and we primarily take flights less than 500 miles, small planes are the best option for us. I absolutely still fly commercial internationally by myself for business but for family trips, I love my plane.
If you’re looking for family friendly single tank trips, I don’t know anything better than your own plane, plane share or rental.
