Last September, the Senate held a hearing on the state of America’s airlines. There were the common complaints of delays and poor customer service. The most intriguing testimony, however, was a little-noticed comment by the then-CEO of Frontier Airlines, Barry Biffle. He fingered an unusual culprit for the woes facing both passengers and airlines: private aircraft. These entities, he said, were clogging up airports and quietly leading to delays for ordinary passengers.

The FAA does not collect data on how often private jets cause delays, but Biffle claimed the problem was pervasive and serious. Private jets “game the system” by fudging scheduled departure times and taking off earlier than airlines when there are air traffic control delay programs. “Sadly, airlines often end up having to cancel because these delays stack up and time out our crews,” Biffle said.

We all know that flying can be a miserable experience, and it is only getting worse. Although there are many factors behind increasing airfares and declining service, Biffle’s comments show that the rise of private jets is increasingly contributing to the woes of American flyers. Private jets operate at some of the largest, most congested airports in the country, and do so in a way that causes significant problems and costs for the rest of us.

While airline passengers are charged exorbitant fees and experience delays without any recourse from air carriers and few guarantees from the Department of Transportation, the uber-wealthy, C-suite executives, celebrities, and others who either own, operate, or fly on private jets benefit from unequal rules and regulations. These individuals are able to skip lines, schedule their own takeoff time, and land as close as possible to their final destination, all while producing outsized carbon footprints. And they often do so by using publicly funded infrastructure and resources without paying for it — unlike all other airline passengers.

As detailed below, the number of private jets flying in recent years — particularly in American skies — has increased, thanks to government and market incentives that have made it more enticing for the rich to avoid the hassles of commercial airlines.

This week, as thousands descend upon Santa Clara, California, for Super Bowl LX, the super-rich will be swarming in on private jets, just as they do when attending other A-list events like the World Economic Forum in Davos; the Cannes Film Festival; the FIFA World Cup; and — ironically enough — the United Nations climate negotiations. Together, these five venues recently totaled 3,500 private jet arrivals in one year (while producing 35,600 tons of carbon pollution).

This paper explains how private jets are crowding skies and congesting airports, including what political and policy considerations are exacerbating the problem. Key findings include:

• Private jets clog some of our most congested airports, even airports at which the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) tightly controls takeoff and landing “slots.”
• Taxpayers are getting ripped off by millionaires and billionaires flying private jets and not contributing equitably to airport user fees.
• President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill included a 100% bonus depreciation on private jets for tax purposes, exacerbating the problem.

We detail why all this matters, and how to reform rules and regulations so that private jet travel is conducted in a way that makes flying fairer. This can be achieved by reforming airport leases, introducing equitable fee structures, and restricting private jet travel at the most congested facilities.