Banning private jets used by the wealthy, as called for by California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, a group called Patriotic Millionaires, among others, would mean disruptions to many industries, layoffs, and unnecessary deaths, as organ donor and other medical flights would likely be grounded as well.
On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed restrictions on flights at 40 airports, that included private jet operators. Yesterday it imposed a virtual ban on private flights from 12 major airports.
A private jet ban targeting the super-rich would also affect flights using aircraft to transport children undergoing cancer treatment and first-responder flights in the event of another natural disaster, such as Hurricane Melissa, say experts.
Porter, a former congressional representative, took to social media over the weekend.
She challenged President Donald J. Trump to target private aviation.
“Every day, thousands of private jets take off carrying CEOs, billionaires, and the one percent, and they take up the work of the air traffic control system too. Wouldn’t it make more sense to cancel the planes that carry the fewest passengers first? It’s just another example of who Donald Trump truly cares about, and it isn’t us.”
Merkley posted on X, “Just a thought… instead of reducing U.S. commercial flights, FAA should start by cancelling all billionaire and corporate private jet travel!”
Patriotic Millionaires president and founder Erica Payne told Fast Money, “If you need a 10% reduction [in flights], you can get 100% of your reduction from the private planes. You do not need to affect commercial flights, period.”
Payne added, “And there’s an easy way out of this. Patriotic Millionaires are saying: shut down private air travel during the government shutdown and use that extra capacity.”
However, industry executives say it’s not as easy as clipping the wings of big-company CEOs and billionaires such as Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg.
Nearly 60% of companies operating business aircraft have 500 or fewer workers, according to the National Business Aviation Association, an industry trade group.
More than 40% of member flights were to airports with no or limited scheduled airline flights, and more than one-third were to airports that had never had commercial airline flights.
What’s more, the top executives being targeted are only on about half of the flights (56%), according to the pilots who fly the airplanes.
The other flights included technical specialists, middle managers, and customers, per the research.
The group recently pointed to Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, based in Pullman, Washington.
In a recent profile on the NBAA website, SEL president, Dr. Edmund O. Schweitzer III, said the company would not be able to maintain its headquarters in the eastern Washington city without private aviation.
He wrote, “In 2000, we purchased our first airplane after benefiting from charter air services. It reduced a three-day trip to one day, with seats often full, to ten times as many destinations as the airlines. We own three business aircraft today. Over 8,000 different employees have used these aircraft to visit customers and suppliers, respond to problems and opportunities, recruit new employees, and collaborate globally. “
The company builds products that protect, automate, and control critical infrastructure.
James Leach, chief marketing officer for Air Charter Service, said of those calling for a ban on private jets for the uber wealthy, “They need to think carefully about the knock-on effects.”
The UK-based firm handles both passenger and cargo charters.
He said time-sensitive cargo charters, which often use smaller jets and turboprops, still use the same infrastructure that the billionaires and CEOs Porter, Merkley, and others want grounded.
Leach continued, “General aviation is one industry.”
He described it as “a single ecosystem” in which medical and cargo flights rely on the same handlers, fuelers, and maintenance shops that support the aircraft used by UHNWs and CEOs.
If workers were laid off and facilities that cater to business aircraft at smaller airports were shuttered, it would disrupt shipments of replacement parts needed on short notice to keep factory lines running in the automotive industry and energy supplies, according to Leach.
Cancer patients would also feel the impact of grounding private jets. Corporate Angel Network has facilitated over 70,000 flights for cancer patients using seats donated on corporate aircraft. Many of those flight recipients are immunocompromised and would have to miss treatments.
Jessie Naor, president of the Private Aviation Safety Alliance, was previously president of Grandview Aviation, which operated a fleet of Phenom 300 business jets serving both the private jet charter market and organ transplants.
Naor says the company was operating over 400 life-saving flights annually and estimates that there are 10 to 20 such flights nationwide daily just for heart transplants.
She says that without access to the same facilities that support Musk, Zuckerberg, and the Kardashians, those organ donor flights couldn’t be operated.
She calls the calls to ground private jets “a political stunt” that would result in unnecessary deaths.
Naor says Grandview had seven bases nationwide and three to four pilot shifts daily —an expensive proposition but necessary in a market where minutes matter.
A typical organ transplant flight starts with picking up the team of doctors assisting the recipient and flying them to where the donor organ is being prepared, something that has to be done within a few hours.
She says a second crew would be needed in case the first crew ran out of duty time, so the doctors and the transplant organ could be flown back to the recipient.
FBOs and other resources needed would likely shutter or limit service hours if there were a downturn in business.
She said very quickly operating organ donor flights would become “difficult if not impossible.”
After the FAA said it would limit private flights at 12 major airports, NBAA CEO Ed Bolen noted restrictions are “disproportionately impacting general aviation, an industry that creates more than a million jobs, generates $340 billion in economic impact, and supports humanitarian flights every day.”
While the restrictions allow for medical flights, Naor says she fears the facilities that serve them would not be able to stay open solely to serve one segment of the market.
Naor and others noted that the infrastructure supporting private aviation has saved numerous lives in the wake of natural disasters.
Private jet facilities played a key role in saving lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Roger Woolsey, the CEO of Million Air, a network of private terminals, said its San Antonio location contributed “five jets out of the charter department…to restock (and) keep critical care units (in Houston) running, including needed medicines.”
The company’s Houston location received dozens of first-responder flights for days before airline service could be restored.
Naor says she is concerned that even targeting 12 airports to cut private flights, as the FAA did yesterday, could affect time-sensitive organ donor flights if the facilities at those airports can’t remain open due to reduced business.
Earlier this year Senator Bernie Sanders defended his use of private jets.
Sanders called flying by private jet “the only way to get around.”
“You run a campaign, and you do three or four or five rallies in a week…the only way you can get around to talk to 30,000 people. You think I’m gonna be sitting in a waiting line at United…while 30,000 people are waiting?” Sanders told Fox News.
He added, “No apologies for that. That’s what campaign travel is about. We’ve done it in the past. We’re gonna do it in future.”
There was no response to requests for comment from Merkley and Patriotic Millionaires while Porter could not be reached for comment.