Initial costs can add up

Opting for private instead of commercial air travel can require a substantial investment to get started.

Flying yourself requires a private pilot certificate, which goes for about $5,400 at Wisconsin Aviation at the Dane County Regional Airport. That amount includes aircraft rental, instructor time, training materials, a medical exam and fees for the written exam and flight test.

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Getting an instrument rating, required to fly during low visibility conditions, costs $6,200 more. Other certificates include commercial pilot, multi-engine rating and certified flight instructor.

Buying a plane can cost less than $50,000 for a small, older model aircraft to $8 million for a larger private luxury jet. Newer midsized private planes that seat around 4-6 can cost from $300,000 to $700,000.

Students with certificates and licensed pilots can rent planes at Wisconsin Aviation with prices ranging from $60 an hour for a two-seat Cessna 152 to $232 an hour for a multi-engine plane, including fuel.

Instead of buying a plane and learning to fly, another business option is to charter planes as needed. Chartering one of 20 available planes and a pilot from Wisconsin Aviation costs from $1.10 per mile for the aircraft and $27 an hour for the pilot for a four-seat propeller aircraft, to $1,595 a day for the aircraft and $800 for two pilots in a 10-seat jet aircraft.

Rich Morey of Morey Airplane Co. at Middleton Municipal Airport said he has two charter aircraft available at a per-mile cost. He said a roundtrip to Ann Arbor, Mich., for example, would cost $1,700 to $2,100 while a roundtrip to Minneapolis would cost $1,250 to $1,500.