This is the wild reality of what it actually costs to own a $30M private jet after buying it

A well-known YouTuber decided to buy a private jet and documented the whole process.

Entertaining, no doubt, but also eye-opening.

The YouTuber in question ultimately settled for a $30 million private jet.

And the hourly cost he revealed was wild.

The key difference between luxury cars and private jets

When it comes to maintenance, owning a private plane (or a yacht) is more expensive than owning a luxury car, not just because of scale but also because of technical and legal reasons.

With a hypercar, missing maintenance standards may lower its value or invalidate its warranty, but it won’t make the car legally or physically undriveable.

With private planes, the situation is different.

There’s a long list of things that need doing just to keep the aircraft airworthy.

None of those are optional.

And, as we’re about to find out, it’s a very expensive list.

This is what a long-range private jet costs per year

YouTuber Iman Gadzhi documented his visit to a private plane specialist and more importantly the breakdown of the variable and fixed costs of owning a private jet.

The would-be buyer said he wanted at least three sections with enough room for up to eight passengers, the range has to be good enough to cover Dubai-London without refueling.

That’s Gulfstream G500 (pictured below) territory, which is a $40 million aircraft when new, or around $30 if can get a second-hand one.

So far, so expensive, but it gets worse.

Private jet consultant Steve Varsano, founder of TheJetBusiness, broke down the annual costs.

“When you have a plane, costs are broken down into two things. There are fixed costs, and variable costs. Fixed costs stay the same whether you fly one hour or 400 hours. Pilot salaries, hangar fees, insurance, computer maintenance, recurrent training, and so on. All those things, whether you move the plane or not, you pay,” he said.

“Then there are variable costs. Fuel, landing fees, catering, hotels for pilots and staff.

“At 350-400 flight hours per year, fixed costs alone average $4,000 per hour, variable costs you need $5,700 per hour.”

Varsano also revealed something else that costs a fortune.

“Moving things around is expensive,” he said.

He then pointed to the screen where a preview of the airplane was being shown and said: “If you want to replace this couch with two chairs, that’s $400,000.”

You can buy a house for that.

There’s a silver lining

According to Varsano, the silver lining is that the more you fly, the cheaper the overall cost per hour becomes.

While fixed expenses remain completely flat, spreading that massive overhead across a higher volume of annual flight hours lowers the overall hourly rate.

Then again, the moral of the story is simple: if one has to worry about the cost, buying a private jet outright is probably not for them.