Craft · Open books
The business behind the fleet
Explore how Craft operates its Challenger fleet: what the aircraft earn, what they cost to fly, and how often they fly. Selected management accounts and flight records cover 2020 through July 2026.
Fleet financials
The fleet in numbers#
Revenue, operating profit, and costs from Craft's management accounts. Aircraft results exclude shared company overhead. Figures for 2026 cover January through July; annualized estimates and model assumptions are labeled separately.
$27.7M
revenue, January through July 2026
$968K
company net profit, January through July 2026
12.1%
fleet operating margin, 2026, aircraft level
$263M
total revenue, 2020 through July 2026
$1.1M
cumulative company net income, 2020 through July 2026
16.4%
Challenger operating margin, all periods combined
Company financials
Revenue and financial history#
Company-wide revenue, costs, and earnings from 2020 through July 2026, including the aircraft operated in each period. These totals include shared overhead and non-operating items; Challenger-only results follow below.
| Year | Revenue | Direct costs | Gross profit | Margin | Overhead | Other | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $2,714,423 | $2,243,764 | $470,659 | 17.3% | $633,332 | $8,311 | −$154,361 |
| 2021 | $20,614,526 | $13,874,368 | $6,740,157 | 32.7% | $1,873,578 | $3,016,527 | $7,883,107 |
| 2022 | $71,390,663 | $58,825,749 | $12,564,913 | 17.6% | $7,013,533 | −$540,202 | $5,011,178 |
| 2023 | $71,516,514 | $70,398,708 | $1,117,806 | 1.6% | $10,108,838 | −$1,435,327 | −$10,426,359 |
| 2024 | $36,752,296 | $35,650,834 | $1,101,463 | 3.0% | $4,397,279 | $378,394 | −$2,917,422 |
| 2025 | $32,355,610 | $29,084,558 | $3,271,052 | 10.1% | $3,804,283 | $1,224,409 | $691,178 |
| 2026Jan to Jul | $27,710,281 | $24,398,389 | $3,311,892 | 12.0% | $2,515,483 | $171,516 | $967,925 |
| Total | $263,054,313 | $234,476,370 | $28,577,942 | 10.9% | $30,346,326 | $2,823,628 | $1,055,246 |
2026 covers January through July. Direct costs are the cost of hours actually flown. Overhead is everything below the gross line. Other is interest, one-offs, and non-operating items; the 2021 figure includes a one-time gain.
By aircraft
Challenger fleet results#
Annual revenue and operating profit for the Challenger fleet, before shared company overhead and non-operating items. The table below breaks out the current fleet by aircraft.
| Year | Fleet revenue | Operating profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $2,606,148 | $396,539 | +15.2% |
| 2021 | $13,594,525 | $5,347,248 | +39.3% |
| 2022 | $24,919,241 | $7,579,567 | +30.4% |
| 2023 | $17,445,411 | $435,164 | +2.5% |
| 2024 | $21,850,872 | $1,899,889 | +8.7% |
| 2025 | $30,048,333 | $3,625,283 | +12.1% |
| 2026Jan to Jul | $27,010,766 | $3,278,744 | +12.1% |
| Seven years | $137,475,296 | $22,562,434 | +16.4% |
| Exited: N165JF, N390AB | $12,806,830 | −$1,847,708 | -14.4% |
Results by aircraft · January–July 2026
| Tail | Revenue | Operating profit | Margin | Adj. EBITDA / month | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N150MB | $5,830,935 | $1,067,791 | +18.3% | $236K | 7 months booked |
| N251FT | $4,882,017 | $444,250 | +9.1% | $130K | on rental engines |
| N395PD | $5,613,574 | $575,760 | +10.3% | $255K | 7 months booked |
| N7PG | $5,741,979 | $582,706 | +10.1% | $302K | 6 months booked |
| N971MC | $4,942,261 | $608,237 | +12.3% | $194K | 7 months booked |
Operating costs
The cost of delivering each flight#
Direct costs cover aircraft operations, crews, trip fees, and flights provided by other operators. Shared overhead supports the company. Both breakdowns cover January through July 2026.
Direct costs, $24,398,389
Fuel, maintenance and engine programs: the cost of hours actually flown.
Salaries, benefits, training, and getting crews to the aircraft.
Trip-related fees paid to third parties.
Aircraft provided by other operators to cover customer trips.
Overhead, $2,515,483
Compensation for non-flight staff.
Software, insurance, rent, professional fees.
Aircraft costs per dollar of revenue
Unit economics
The economics of a Challenger#
The monthly average and charter example use the fleet's 2026 operating margin. The hourly example uses the hypothetical assumptions for a $15M Challenger listed below.
Monthly average per aircraft · 2026
$771,736
revenue billed
$93,678
operating profit before shared overhead, 12.1%
Illustrative charter flight
$40,000
the customer pays
$4,850
operating profit at the 2026 fleet margin
Illustrative revenue per flight hour
$8,000
revenue per hour
$3,500
after $4,300 direct cost and $200 to Craft
Aircraft model assumptions
The model deducts depreciation before calculating the profit available to split. This accounts for the aircraft's loss in value over time.
Timeline
How the fleet evolved#
September 2020
Commercial operations begin
Craft completed approvals and crew training, then operated its first paid flight in September.
2021
Flight operations expand
Craft added crews and flight hours as customer demand grew.
2022
A broader aircraft mix
The fleet expanded to include two Gulfstream G-IVs alongside the Challengers.
2023
Performance reviewed by aircraft
Reporting by tail number allowed Craft to compare each aircraft's operating costs and contribution to the business.
2024
A shift toward Challengers
Craft sold the Gulfstreams and narrowed its aircraft mix.
2025
A more focused operation
The Challenger strategy brought crew training, parts inventory, and maintenance around one aircraft family.
2026, through July
Five Challengers in service
The current fleet consists of three Challenger 300s and two Challenger 350s. The operating figures on this page cover the first seven months of the year.
Fuel
How Craft manages fuel costs#
Fuel accounts for roughly a fifth of customer revenue. Craft bills fuel surcharges to customers to help recover changes in fuel costs. The figures below compare fuel prices with the Challenger fleet's gross margin.
+51%
jet fuel benchmark, 2025 to July 2026
1 in 5
dollars a customer pays goes to fuel
12.1% to 12.1%
what Craft kept of every dollar, 2025 to 2026
Historical comparison
Fuel prices and fleet margins#
Annual fuel prices and Challenger gross margins from 2021 through July 2026. Each row uses its own scale.
Fuel price is the annual average, dollars per gallon; the peak year and this year in red. What Craft kept is gross margin on total income, Challenger aircraft only.
Fuel prices alone do not explain fleet margins. Charter rates, aircraft utilization, and other operating costs also affect results. The 2026 comparison covers January through July.
Fuel surcharges
How fuel costs reach the customer#
Craft uses a fuel surcharge to reflect changes in fuel costs on customer invoices. From January through July 2026, these surcharges totaled $666,000. The fleet uses approximately 295 gallonsper flight hour, so the price per gallon is a significant component of each trip's cost.
Fuel surcharges billed, Jan to Jul 2026
$666,300
included on customer invoices
One customer dollar
Flying
How often the fleet flies#
The 5 current Challengers logged 3,234 flight hours from January through July 2026. The records below show annual utilization, monthly activity, and routes, drawn from 13,784 flights across all aircraft operated since September 2020.
3,234
flight hours, January through July 2026, Challengers
1,142
annualized hours per Challenger, 2026 pace
77%
billable: occupied hours over flight hours, 2026
3,315
revenue passengers carried, 2026 to date
13,784
legs logged since 2020, every aircraft
31,170
flight hours since 2020, every aircraft
Hours per aircraft, by year
Flight hours compared with the model#
Annualized hours per Challenger compared with the model assumptions. The breakeven line includes direct costs, fixed costs, interest, and depreciation.
1,200 to 1,400 hours, what the fleet has historically flownthe model assumes 1,100 hourseconomic breakeven, 836 hours
Annualized flight hours per Challenger. *2020 annualizes September through December of one aircraft; *2026 is January through July.
Annualized utilization reached 1,303 hours per Challenger in 2022and 1,220 in 2025. The current pace is 1,142 hours. Utilization met or exceeded the model's 1,100-hour assumption in five of the seven reported periods. The partial periods in 2020 and 2026 are annualized for comparison.
Lowest annualized utilization
921
Hours per Challenger in 2023, based on 44 aircraft-months. This is 85hours above the model's 836-hour breakeven assumption.
Annual flight records
Challenger flight activity by year#
Challenger 300 and 350 aircraft only, including the since-sold airframes. Aircraft-months are calendar months in which a tail logged at least one leg; annualized is hours per aircraft-month times twelve.
| Year | Legs | Flight hours | Occupied hours | Billable | Revenue pax | Gal / hour | Aircraft-months | Hours / month | Annualized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020Sep to Dec | 242 | 488.2 | 337.1 | 69% | 508 | 249.3 | 4 | 122.0 | 1,465 |
| 2021 | 1,187 | 2,587.7 | 1,911.9 | 74% | 2,565 | 296.5 | 24 | 107.8 | 1,294 |
| 2022 | 1,944 | 4,343.7 | 3,084.5 | 71% | 4,059 | 291.7 | 40 | 108.6 | 1,303 |
| 2023 | 1,460 | 3,376.7 | 2,506.7 | 74% | 3,417 | 298.9 | 44 | 76.7 | 921 |
| 2024 | 1,504 | 3,173.1 | 2,431.0 | 77% | 3,483 | 297.5 | 36 | 88.1 | 1,058 |
| 2025 | 1,932 | 4,167.7 | 3,227.5 | 77% | 4,250 | 290.7 | 41 | 101.7 | 1,220 |
| 2026Jan to Jul | 1,561 | 3,234.4 | 2,499.9 | 77% | 3,315 | 296.7 | 34 | 95.1 | 1,142 |
| Challengers, all years | 9,830 | 21,371.5 | 15,998.6 | 75% | 21,597 | 293.8 | 223 | 95.8 | 1,150 |
Occupied hours are hours flown with a revenue passenger aboard under Part 135; billable is occupied over flight hours, so the balance is positioning and owner flying. Gallons per hour is the fleet average from logged fuel. The whole certificate, every aircraft type, comes to 31,170 hours, 74% billable, 33,779 revenue passengers, 20% of legs international.
Detailed records
Explore the flight records
View flight activity by aircraft, month, or destination.
Activity by aircraftannual flight records, including aircraft no longer in the fleet
Hours per month flown counts only the months a tail was in service, so a jet that joined in August is measured on its own months, not the calendar. Billable is occupied over flight hours.
| Tail | Type | Legs | Flight hours | Months flown | Hours / month | Billable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020Sep to Dec1 aircraft, 1,465 annualized per aircraft | 242 | 488.2 | 4 | 122.0 | 69% | |
| N971MC | Challenger 300 (2007) | 242 | 488.2 | 4 | 122.0 | 69% |
| 20213 aircraft, 1,294 annualized per aircraft | 1,187 | 2,587.7 | 24 | 107.8 | 74% | |
| N971MC | Challenger 300 (2007) | 706 | 1,509.0 | 12 | 125.8 | 79% |
| N3975A | Challenger 300 (2008) | 369 | 830.5 | 9 | 92.3 | 64% |
| N150MB | Challenger 300 (2007) | 112 | 248.2 | 3 | 82.7 | 77% |
| 20224 aircraft, 1,303 annualized per aircraft | 1,944 | 4,343.7 | 40 | 108.6 | 71% | |
| N3975A | Challenger 300 (2008) | 658 | 1,492.6 | 12 | 124.4 | 71% |
| N150MB | Challenger 300 (2007) | 611 | 1,343.9 | 12 | 112.0 | 74% |
| N971MC | Challenger 300 (2007) | 572 | 1,264.1 | 12 | 105.3 | 68% |
| N251FT | Challenger 300 (2011) | 103 | 243.1 | 4 | 60.8 | 72% |
| 20234 aircraft, 921 annualized per aircraft | 1,460 | 3,376.7 | 44 | 76.7 | 74% | |
| N3975A | Challenger 300 (2008) | 441 | 1,008.1 | 12 | 84.0 | 75% |
| N971MC | Challenger 300 (2007) | 371 | 884.5 | 10 | 88.5 | 71% |
| N150MB | Challenger 300 (2007) | 343 | 770.1 | 11 | 70.0 | 74% |
| N251FT | Challenger 300 (2011) | 305 | 714.0 | 11 | 64.9 | 77% |
| 20243 aircraft, 1,058 annualized per aircraft | 1,504 | 3,173.1 | 36 | 88.1 | 77% | |
| N251FT | Challenger 300 (2011) | 552 | 1,134.8 | 12 | 94.6 | 78% |
| N971MC | Challenger 300 (2007) | 499 | 1,062.6 | 12 | 88.5 | 74% |
| N150MB | Challenger 300 (2007) | 453 | 975.7 | 12 | 81.3 | 78% |
| 20254 aircraft, 1,220 annualized per aircraft | 1,932 | 4,167.7 | 41 | 101.7 | 77% | |
| N251FT | Challenger 300 (2011) | 607 | 1,328.3 | 12 | 110.7 | 77% |
| N971MC | Challenger 300 (2007) | 559 | 1,216.7 | 12 | 101.4 | 76% |
| N150MB | Challenger 300 (2007) | 556 | 1,151.2 | 12 | 95.9 | 80% |
| N395PD | Challenger 350 | 210 | 471.5 | 5 | 94.3 | 75% |
| 2026Jan to Jul5 aircraft, 1,142 annualized per aircraft | 1,561 | 3,234.4 | 34 | 95.1 | 77% | |
| N150MB | Challenger 300 (2007) | 350 | 711.4 | 7 | 101.6 | 76% |
| N7PG | Challenger 350 | 322 | 660.8 | 7 | 94.4 | 75% |
| N395PD | Challenger 350 | 317 | 645.8 | 7 | 92.3 | 77% |
| N251FT | Challenger 300 (2011) | 296 | 644.6 | 7 | 92.1 | 78% |
| N971MC | Challenger 300 (2007) | 276 | 571.8 | 6 | 95.3 | 80% |
Aircraft no longer in the fleet
9,533 hours flown by aircraft no longer on the certificate, 31% of the total. Seven Gulfstream tails came and went between 2021 and 2024, and a Beechcraft Premier flew light duty in 2024 and 2025. The books for those years are by aircraft, above.
Monthly flight hourshours by aircraft; darker cells indicate more flying
Monthly records for the current fleet in 2025 and 2026. Empty cells indicate months when an aircraft was not yet operating under the certificate or no record was available.
The pattern is the charter calendar: the winter and spring peaks, a softer late summer, and the dips where a tail sat for scheduled maintenance, a 20-hour February for one jet, a 13-hour March for another. Every hour in these cells is also an hour on the engine clock: the fleet's engines are inspected every 4,800 hours, and at the model's 1,100-hour pace that clock runs down in about four years. The engines question explains the maintenance process.
Routes and destinationsNew York, Miami, Los Angeles, and the islands
A 2021 snapshot, the one year the log was captured airport by airport. Touches count each arrival or departure, so a round trip counts twice.
Top airports, 2021
Top routes, 2021
Teterboro to Opa-locka is the spine: New York to Miami, both directions, then Van Nuys to either coast.
Countries touched, 2021
142 touches outside the United States against 2,194 inside it. Mexico and the Caribbean are the international business; it is a domestic fleet.
2021 is the only year the log was captured at this grain. Later years are aggregated by tail and month, not by airport, so the map is a snapshot of the second year rather than the current one.
Company figures are Craft Charter, LLC internal management accounts, prepared on an accrual basis, unaudited. 2026 covers January through July. Aircraft-level figures are net operating income summed over named tail numbers before shared company overhead. Adjusted EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, with aircraft rent and owner revenue shares added back, before overhead. The plane model is a set of hypothetical assumptions, not a projection.
Craft Charter, LLC management accounts, accrual basis, unaudited, Challenger aircraft only. Fuel price is the U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel spot price (EIA), annual average; 2026 is January through July. What Craft kept is gross margin on total income. Updated September 2026.
Flight figures: JetInsight logged flights, Craft Charter LLC, September 1 2020 through July 31 2026, all aircraft under the certificate including since-sold airframes, pulled September 1 2026. Challenger cohort is Bombardier Challenger 300 and 350 aircraft. Aircraft-months are calendar months with at least one logged leg; annualized hours are flight hours per aircraft-month times twelve. 2020 covers September to December and annualizes four months of one aircraft; 2026 covers January to July. International legs for 2021 are endpoint touches, an upper bound. JetInsight is the operational record and does not reconcile to the accounting period automatically.
Targets are targets, not guarantees. You can lose principal. Where anything on this page differs from the private placement memorandum, the memorandum controls. Nothing on this page is an offer to sell, or a request to buy, any investment.