By Eric Grilly, President, Cirrus Aviation Services
When someone books a private flight, the request often begins with a few basic details: where they want to go, when they need to arrive and how many people are traveling.
Understanding what will make that trip successful takes a deeper conversation. A business meeting with no flexibility on arrival time requires a different approach than a family vacation with young children. Two aircraft with the same passenger capacity may offer very different experiences. And the lowest initial quote may come with tradeoffs a guest would never know to ask about.
Throughout my career in aviation and hospitality, I have found that those conversations are where trust begins. As artificial intelligence becomes part of charter booking and sales, I believe its greatest value will be giving our teams more time to have them.
An industry moving fast enough to need a compass
It’s worth pausing on just how quickly this market is moving. The private jet charter industry is projected to grow from roughly $24 billion in 2025 to more than $27 billion in 2026, and toward $45 billion by 2030 — a sustained compound annual growth rate near 13.5%. The population fueling that growth is expanding too: the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals worldwide has climbed from about 551,000 in 2021 to more than 713,000 today, with roughly 89 new people crossing that threshold every single day.
At the same time, private jet flight activity is up double digits year-over-year, and the first-time flyer base is getting younger — nearly half of new private jet clients are now under 45. That’s a generation that expects the speed and convenience of digital tools, but not at the expense of getting it right.
This is exactly the tension AI in charter sales has to navigate: more volume, more complexity, and less patience for a process that feels transactional. Avinode has described AI’s near-term potential as accelerating aircraft sourcing while leaving the final assessment of operator relationships, client preferences and trip specifics with the broker and client. That framing matches what I see in our own operation every day: AI is very good at compressing the search space. It is not yet — and may never be — a substitute for judgment.
More inquiries, same number of hours
For a charter sales team fielding a growing volume of requests, the administrative load adds up quickly: matching aircraft to trips, checking availability, chasing missing details. AI can help organize incoming inquiries, flag what’s missing and surface a shortlist of aircraft for a broker or client to evaluate. That’s meaningfully different from AI deciding what a client should fly.
Guests deserve timely responses, and our people should be spending that reclaimed time on advice, not data entry.
We’ve put this into practice at Cirrus Aviation Services ourselves. We’ve implemented AI for trend forecasting across our market — helping us anticipate demand patterns, seasonal shifts and aircraft utilization — as well as for generating initial quotes faster. The result isn’t a faster way to hand a client a number. It’s a faster way to get our brokers and clients to the point where the real conversation can start: reviewing that quote against the trip’s actual requirements before it ever reaches a guest.
The distinction we need to preserve is between generating an option and confirming that it is the right one.
An aircraft might look suitable on paper — seating capacity, published range, a price that fits the budget. Confirming that fit takes a closer look: actual passenger and baggage load, airport and runway conditions, aircraft availability, crew duty limits. Sales teams need that operational input before an option is presented as something the company can actually deliver.
A polished response should never imply those checks have happened if they haven’t. Technology can support the process, but the people responsible for selling and operating the flight have to remain accountable for the recommendation.
The data says clients agree
This isn’t just a philosophy I hold — it’s increasingly what the market is telling us directly.
- A recent industry survey found that roughly 76% of private jet travelers now prioritize consultation with a human broker or advisor over self-service booking apps, even as digital tools become more capable.
- Firms leaning into that advisory model are reporting repeat-customer rates near 60% — evidence that once a traveler experiences real, personalized guidance, they don’t go looking for an app to replace it.
- Separately, research cited by Skift’s State of Travel report found that only about 2% of travelers said they’d be comfortable giving AI full autonomy over a booking with no human oversight.
Read together, those numbers say something important: clients want the speed AI enables, but they are not asking to be handed off to it. They want faster access to a person who knows what they’re doing.
Responsibility beyond feasibility
That responsibility extends beyond whether a flight is operationally possible.
Consider a family traveling with grandparents, children and several large bags. A request for eight seats tells us very little about whether boarding will be comfortable, whether the baggage will actually fit, or how the cabin will work for that specific group. A conversation might reveal that easier cabin access matters more to them than the price difference between two aircraft.
AI can help identify which questions to ask. An experienced advisor has to follow through, listen to the answers, and explain the tradeoffs clearly.
This is where my hospitality background shapes how I think about technology. A guest should feel that we understand why the trip matters to them. If AI reduces the time we spend assembling information, that time should go toward anticipating needs, discussing alternatives, and making sure expectations match what we can actually provide.
When plans change
The same principle applies when things don’t go as scheduled — and in this industry, they often don’t.
If a meeting runs late or an aircraft becomes unavailable, guests need someone who understands their priorities, coordinates with the right teams, and communicates a realistic path forward. That’s the moment the relationship built during booking pays off. No amount of automated rebooking logic replaces a person who already knows why the trip matters and what “good enough” doesn’t look like for that client.
Measuring the right thing
For aviation leaders, the measure of success should go beyond how quickly a quote leaves the inbox. With the on-demand charter market alone approaching $45 billion by 2026 and the broader business jet market projected to top $33 billion this year, the operators who win long-term won’t be the ones who respond fastest — they’ll be the ones whose recommendations hold up once the wheels leave the ground.
We should be asking whether our recommendations are better informed, whether guests understand what they’re purchasing, and whether our teams have more time to actually support them.
At Cirrus Aviation Services, my expectation is that the experience we promise during the sales conversation carries through to the flight itself. Any technology we adopt should help us meet that standard — not lower it in the name of speed.
I welcome tools that make charter booking faster and easier. The opportunity is to use that efficiency to become more attentive, more informed and more available to the people choosing to fly with us.
AI can help us respond sooner. We earn trust by following through.
Sources: Avinode Group; Mordor Intelligence, “Private Jet Charter Services Market Size & Share” (2026); ResearchAndMarkets, “Private Jet Charter Services Market Report” (2026); Safe Fly Aviation, “Global Aviation Outlook 2026” and “Why Private Jet Demand Is Entering a New Era in 2026”; Paramount Business Jets market analysis (2026); Skift, State of Travel 2025 (via McKinsey/Aircraft Charter analysis).
