Magellan Jets Redesigns Jet Cards With Route Discounts, Short-Leg Waivers and Flexible Hour Purchases

Magellan Jets has redesigned its jet card program, adding route-based pricing and short-trip benefits and letting clients tailor their purchased hours and aircraft choice.

The new Advantage Routes feature gives a 7% discount on hourly pricing on high-demand corridors frequently flown by Magellan Jets clients. It launched with two eastern-region routes and now covers trips in both directions between origin airports KTEB, KHPN, KBED, KIAD, KBWI, KPNE and KPHL and destination airports KBCT, KOPF, KDJT (KPBI), KFLL, KFXE, KPDK, KCLT, KGSP, KFTY, KHOU and KDAL. In the example given, a 50-hour midsize jet card client flying from Boston to Palm Beach (KPBI) would pay $8,620 per hour before federal excise tax (FET) instead of the standard $9,270.

The second addition is short-leg waivers, which lower the daily minimum on shorter flights. They reduce the minimum rather than remove it, and the amount depends on aircraft type. For light jets including the Phenom 300, the daily minimum drops from 1.5 hours to 1.2 hours. For midsize aircraft and larger, each waiver lowers the daily minimum by 0.5 hours. Cardholders receive four waivers at the 50-hour level and eight at the 100-hour level. Magellan said clients asked for the change so that a handful of shorter trips would no longer cost them disproportionately.

The card structure is also more customizable. Clients can buy any number of hours at or above a 25-hour minimum, rather than the industry's traditional 25-hour increments. They can choose category-based cards (Light, Midsize, Super-Midsize or Heavy) or premium cards tied to specific aircraft models (Phenom 300, Challenger 350, or Gulfstream G450/550).

The 25-hour card includes a 12-month rate lock, a 10% long-leg and round-trip rate advantage, and access to up to four aircraft per day.

The 50-hour level adds the 7% Advantage Routes reduction, an 18-month rate lock, a 15% long-leg and round-trip rate advantage, four short-leg waivers, and access to up to six aircraft per day.

At 100 hours, customers receive all of those benefits plus a 24-month rate lock, a 20% long-leg and round-trip rate advantage, eight short-leg waivers, and access to up to eight aircraft per day.

Jet card programs have long sold hours in fixed blocks at a flat hourly rate, which leaves buyers paying the same on a heavily flown corridor as on an occasional one. Tying a discount to specific origin-destination pairs moves part of the pricing toward how a client actually flies, and it gives a provider a way to concentrate demand on routes where it expects repeat traffic.

Short-leg waivers address a different friction: a daily minimum charges for hours not flown when trips are brief. Because the waiver shrinks the minimum instead of removing it, the cost of a short hop falls without the provider giving up the floor that covers its positioning and crew costs. Combined with a 25-hour minimum purchase that no longer has to move in 25-hour steps, the structure lets a buyer size a card to expected usage.

The scaling of benefits with card size, from a 12-month rate lock at 25 hours to 24 months at 100 hours, keeps the strongest terms attached to the largest commitments. For anyone comparing programs, the useful check is whether the route list, the waiver count and the rate-lock length line up with the trips a client really takes, since the 7% discount applies only to listed corridors and only from the 50-hour level.