FAA Part 91 operating-cost benchmark
Two flight hours now benchmark at $522–$544 — including pilot time, before lunch
A reproducible update to aviation’s “$100 hamburger” using the FAA’s official category-level operating costs and a fixed two-flight-hour round trip.
The index
Two-hour flight benchmark by FAA category
The table applies the same two-flight-hour assumption to every FAA Part 91 category. Sprinkle’s count shows how many aircraft variants could be classified; it is not an estimate of the active fleet.
Methodology
One fixed, auditable calculation
- Use Table 4-12 of the FAA’s 2024 Economic Values guide, which reports Part 91 variable and total costs per flight hour by aircraft category.
- Define the benchmark trip as exactly two flight hours: one hour outbound and one hour home. This is an editorial comparison assumption, not a claim about a typical route.
- Multiply each FAA hourly figure by two. No inflation adjustment or replacement fuel price is added.
- Map one preferred Sprinkle performance record per variant to the FAA categories using aircraft type, propulsion, seats, engine count and maximum takeoff weight.
- Keep meal price, airport-specific landing or parking charges and every other route-specific cost out of the index.
Formula: FAA Part 91 hourly category cost × 2.0 flight hours.
Reading it correctly
Benchmark, not a trip quote
The FAA’s variable figure includes crew, fuel and oil, maintenance and reserves. For piston and turboprop airplanes with fewer than 10 seats, the guide values crew time at $80.20 an hour. The total figure also allocates annual fixed and depreciation costs over the source’s assumed utilization.
The FAA guide’s underlying Table 4-11 uses $6.53 per gallon for piston fuel and $6.28 for turbine fuel, based on its source data. Those are source assumptions, not live pump prices.
Actual costs vary with aircraft, ownership, utilization, fuel price, taxi time, routing, weather, maintenance, insurance, financing and airport charges. Nothing here is suitable for flight planning or expense reimbursement.
Source notes
What is official
The operating-cost values come from the FAA Office of Aviation Policy and Plans’ benefit-cost guidance. The cited edition is dated November 2024. Its Part 91 estimates draw on the FAA’s 2022 General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey and the Aircraft Operating Cost and Performance Guide accessed in May 2024.
Coverage
What Sprinkle adds
Sprinkle supplies the aircraft taxonomy used to show which variants fit each FAA category. Variants without the fields needed for a safe match are excluded. The variant-level download exposes the mapping so classifications can be reviewed or challenged.
Suggested source line: “Sprinkle analysis of FAA Part 91 operating-cost benchmarks and Sprinkle aircraft variant data.”