The math behind the instant quote above
Operators sell block time — engine start to shutdown. We estimate it as
block = distance / cruise speed + 0.4h for taxi, climb and approach, with a 1-hour
minimum. A Nairobi–Mombasa hop (~440 km) is ~1.0 block hour in a light jet but ~1.7 in a turboprop.
The rate bundles fuel burn, crew salaries, insurance, maintenance reserves (engines are
overhauled per flight-hour) and owner margin. Typical East Africa figures: light jet
$2,800/hr, single-turboprop $1,350/hr, AS350-class helicopter $1,150/hr.
If the aircraft isn't based where you start, you pay for it to fly to you — the positioning fee. Platforms like this one cut that cost by matching your trip to empty legs: aircraft already returning without passengers, often 30–70% cheaper.
Jet-A1 prices swing hard in the region (landlocked airports pay trucking premiums), so
operators quote a base rate plus a floating surcharge — modeled here as 14% of the flight cost.
Landing + ground handling (~$380/leg in EA secondary airports), passenger service charges
(~$45/pax), then VAT/government taxes — Kenya applies 16% VAT to domestic charter.
Traditional charter: email a broker, wait 24–48h for a quote. A whitelabel SaaS lets any operator publish live tail availability with rule-based pricing — exactly the formula on this page — so a customer sees a bookable price in seconds and the operator gets the booking plus a CRM record. Same aircraft, radically less friction.
total = (rate × block) × 1.14 + positioning + handling + pax×$45, then
× 1.16 VAT. Helicopters add a fuel-stop line when the leg exceeds ~600 km range.