Summary
- Celebrities opt to own private jets for privacy and convenience, avoiding the hassle of commercial travel and enjoying smaller private airports.
- Oprah Winfrey bought her own jet after an unpleasant encounter with a fan at an airport, emphasizing the importance of maintaining privacy.
- While some celebrities like John Travolta and Donald Trump own their own planes, others like Kim Kardashian now choose to charter aircraft instead, citing reduced expenses and logistical convenience.
Celebrities love their private jets, but where do they keep them when they’re not flying about? We take a look at this, and why some may be giving up their planes and opting to charter an aircraft when needed instead.
Synonymous with the rich and famous, private jets are a status symbol and an in-your-face way of showing the world how successful and wealthy you are. They are also a way for well-known people to avoid the public and add a little privacy to their lives when traveling. Plus, private jets can operate out of smaller private airports, avoiding all the hassle of traveling commercially. For the sake of this article and because they are billionaires rather than celebrities, we will leave out people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Mukesh Ambani.
Oprah Winfrey
Calling it her ‘biggest luxury,’ American television star Oprah Winfrey said while talking to British Vogue that she decided to buy a private jet after an unsavory encounter with a woman at the airport. When speaking about the incident, Winfrey said:
“There are days when I am more open and warm than others,” Winfrey explained. “One of the things that actually caused me in 1991 to get my own plane, I was in the airport, and I was just minding my own business and a woman came up and she said, “You’re not acting like you do on TV.” If I’m in an airport, I’m not necessarily hugging people, OK? But I am always just myself.” She added, “I’m never not me. I’m never not the person that you see.”
The famous American talk show purchased a Bombardier Global Express and then changed it for a Gulfstream G550 in 2013 before getting a Gulfstream G650 in 2016. While having multiple homes, Oprah’s primary residence is in Montecito, California. While there, her plane is kept at Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA).
Donald Trump
Photo: Markus Mainka via Shutterstock.
While a political figure in the United States, former President Donald Trump became famous for his television show “The Apprentice.” The larger-than-life billionaire uses a Boeing 757-200 as his private jet. Trump bought the plane from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2011 and parks it near his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate at West Palm Beach Airport (PBI).
John Travolta
While not only a massive Hollywood star, the “Saturday Night Fever” lead actor is also a colossal aviation geek and a pilot. For Travolta, it’s not about having a single plane to fly him around the world; it is a hobby that takes up much of his time. In his collection of aircraft, Travolta’s favorite plane has to be a former Qantas Boeing 707-138B. The actor lives on an Estate that includes a private airport with two runways called “Jumbolair-Greystone Airport (LID)” in Ocala, Florida.
Photo: Google Maps
Kim Kardashian
After becoming rich and famous off the back of the American reality television series about her family, Kim bought a Gulfstream G650ER in 2021 and then spent a year having it fitted out the way she wanted. Kim parks the multi-million dollar plane at Van Nuys Airport (VNY) in Los Angeles, California.
Many celebrities now charter rather than own
For the most part, celebrities store that aircraft at small private business jet airports called FBOs (fixed-base operators). In recent years, many celebrities have sold their private jets and now charter aircraft when they need to go somewhere. Golf legend and top ten money-earning sports star Phil Mickelson told Forbes magazine that selling his Gulfstream V was one of the most intelligent decisions he ever made. He commented,
“When Amy and I would travel to the mountains to go ski, I would need to know months in advance when I was going to go, so that I could get a hangar. Otherwise, if the plane sits outside, things freeze, and there is a huge additional expense that always comes up. With VistaJet, they handle that problem. We don’t have to tell them months in advance. We can tell them hours in advance, and they drop us off wherever we want to go, and they deal with all the logistics.
“Rather than having our plane fly back across the country to pick her up and fly all the way back out, she just hops on a VistaJet flight and we only pay for the hours that she is in the air.”
Mickelson has a good point when he says it is better to leave all the logistics and aircraft maintenance to someone else. What do you think? Please tell us your thoughts in the comments.
Sources: British Vogue, Forbes.