Purchase price band
The €2.95m – €4.39m band is an indicative pre-owned range for a well-maintained, mid-life Cessna Citation Excel on a current maintenance and engine programme, in a typical European charter specification. It is built from published asking prices and retail transaction ranges (Duncan Aviation market letters, AvBuyer and Controller listings, VREF and Aircraft Bluebook retail guidance), then narrowed against what our desk sees pay-and-close in Europe. The model uses a single point inside that band, €3,600,000, so the five-year output is reproducible. Serial number, total time, cycles, engine-programme enrolment, avionics mandates, interior age and import/VAT status routinely move a real transaction outside the band in either direction.
Fixed cost assumptions
€330,000 a year covers two (or, for larger cabins, three) crew with training and recurrent sim, hangarage at a European base, hull and liability insurance, the management fee on a third-party AOC, navigation and weather subscriptions, and scheduled non-flying charges. It excludes financing, tax, extraordinary maintenance events and cabin refurbishment. Sources are operator and management-company budget templates for the type, cross-checked against NBAA and Conklin & de Decker fixed-cost structures.
Direct operating cost per hour
€1,450 per aircraft hour is fuel at prevailing European Jet A-1 pricing, engine and airframe programme accruals, APU and landing-gear reserves, landing, handling and navigation fees, catering and crew expenses. It is applied to actual aircraft hours, not occupied hours: owner trips carry a 15% positioning uplift and third-party charter carries 20%, which is what repositioning empty legs cost in practice.
Charter revenue estimate
180 third-party occupied hours a year at a wholesale base rate of €3,300 per hour is what a managed Cessna Citation Excel realistically sells in Europe once owner availability, maintenance downtime and seasonality are taken out — not the retail rate a client pays. The rate is the operator-level rate band we transact at on Avinode and directly with operators; the owner keeps 85% under a standard management agreement, with the balance retained by the operator. Ferry, fuel surcharges, de-icing and overnights on charter missions are captured in the direct-cost line rather than netted off the rate.
Depreciation and the five-year frame
20% market depreciation is applied over a 5-year hold, with 2% acquisition costs (inspection, legal, delivery) at entry and 3% selling costs at exit. Owner utilisation is held at 100 occupied hours a year across every aircraft so types can be compared like for like. Capital opportunity cost is shown separately at 4% simple per year and is not added into the cash cost. The same frame drives our ownership vs charter vs fractional analysis and the most profitable jets to own ranking, so the three never disagree.
Review cadence
Values are reviewed each quarter against the same sources and re-published in one dataset, so every aircraft page moves together. Read our editorial standards for how we source and correct figures.
