When it comes to inter-continental journeys with the entire C-suite in tow, your average FTSE 100 CEO or billionaire prefers a private aircraft that offers size, speed, range and comfort. But one plane with a claim to being the three-comma club’s favourite doesn’t rank especially highly on any of those metrics. In fact, it’s not even a true ‘private jet’.
I’m talking about the Pilatus PC-12, a Swiss-built ‘business and utility aircraft’, which is in the ascendancy across practically every other metric right now, according to aviation industry experts who spoke to Spear’s for this article.
The 2,200 delivered have flown more than 11 million hours – and are used by the likes of Elon Musk, former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and Michael Bloomberg, ex-Mayor of New York.
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The PC-12 may seem humble at first glance – it was first unveiled 1994 and is a single-engine turbo-prop rather than a jet – but it is now in such high demand that manufacturer Pilatus has a two-year waiting list for new aircraft. Meanwhile, aviation brokers report that pre-owned examples are being sold for more than they cost to buy brand new.
The growing attraction, say operators, is the combination of the PC-12’s 290 knots (330mph) cruise speed at up to 30,000 feet (which means it can fly above the weather for up to 2,070 miles) and its ability to both land and take off from small airfields and grass strips that larger planes and jets can’t manage. This allows PC-12 passengers to get closer to their ultimate departure and arrival points, slashing total journey times.
The total time of a trip from Surrey to St Tropez could be cut by as much as 25 per cent, said Jonathan Clough of Jetfly.
‘Say you live in Virginia Water [in Surrey], and you want to get to St Tropez,’ said Clough, whose firm owns, manages or operates 30 PC-12s and a fleet of jets. ‘By jet, it’s 45 minutes to Farnborough, 90 minutes flight to Toulon-Hyères, then the drive is sometimes 90 minutes to St Tropez – that’s at least four hours.’
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‘Take a PC-12 out of Woking’s Fairoaks airfield, 15 minutes from Virginia Water, fly two hours to La Mole, an airfield 25 minutes from St Tropez, then that’s three hours end-to-end.
What’s more, he added, fees are £1,500 at Farnborough Airport and ‘double that on weekends’. Fees at the smaller Fairoaks and La Mole are in the hundreds of pounds.
The speed and agility of the Pilatus PC-12 also means it can provide rapid access to Gstaad via a landing at the short runway at the nearby Saanen Airport and, even later in the same day, could be used to head down to the Mediterranean. In spring that means ‘snow skiing in Gstaad in the morning, water skiing in the Med two hours later,’ said Clough.
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Art collectors like the PC-12 too. ‘If a collector wants to move a big piece of art, the PC-12 has a big cargo door with which no small jet can compete.’ Clough added: ‘And we have one client who bought one because the cargo door accommodated his son’s full-size powered wheelchair.’
James Banham of private aircraft broker Oriens Aviation, based in Kent, says for business use ‘the PC-12’s versatility gives you back time, and CFOs like that it uses less fuel.
Buyers also tend to approve of the way it holds its value. ‘Pre-Covid, PC-12s held on average 80 per cent of their value after ten years; post-Covid it’s more,’ Banham said.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the aircraft is a favourite for the rich and famous. Elon Musk has been spotted flying into St Barts in the Caribbean in a PC-12 – the hair-raising approach involving flying down a hillside feet above the ground, with very few pilots qualified to fly in and out of the island.
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‘You can bet at least 60 per cent of the celebrity crowd visiting St Barts come and go in a PC-12,’ said one operator.
Ecclestone is believed to own a Swiss-registered PC-12, which, according to flight tracking apps, he appears to use for short hops around Europe. The plane was last seen painted in military-style camouflage.
Billionaire Bloomberg also uses a PC-12 for getting around the USA, while Dion Weisler, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP Inc.), is an avid pilot who even speaks at Pilatus PC-12 events such is his affection for the plane.
‘Demand in the USA is huge, so a lot migrate there. We’re brokering the sale of two PC-12 NGXs – 2021 and 2024, and they’ve both sold for more than was paid for them, which is not uncommon.’
PC-12s costing $6.4 million just a few years ago are selling for upwards of $7 million on the likes of Controller.com and, according to Banham, pre-owned examples are rarely on the market for more than three months. Given the bureaucracy of buying and selling an aircraft, this is on the swift side.
Having identified a gap in the market for a fast, economical, distance-covering alternative to light jets, Pilatus launched the PC-12 in 1994 as a single-engined turbo-prop capable of carrying up to nine passengers. Other layouts are possible; a BMW-designed ‘executive configuration’ seats seat passengers, while the plane’s adaptability means that there are a range of medevac or cargo layouts too.
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The PC-12 has been continually updated since launch. The latest version is the PC-12 PRO, priced from $7.8 million. Around 100 will be built in 2026, 84 of its predecessor PC-12 NGX were delivered in 2025.
WingX, the business aviation market intelligence analyst, says there were around 333,500 known PC-12 flights in the first half of 2026, up 4.3 per cent year-on-year.
Growth was driven by commercial operators’ private charters, air taxi trips and air ambulances (41 per cent of flights, up 7.5 per cent YOY), fractional (aircraft ‘timeshare’) operators (8 per cent of flights, up 6.2 per cent YOY), and private owners and corporate flight departments (up 1.5 per cent YOY), says WingX.
North America dominates, with 72.8 per cent of PC-12 flights, with flights up 6.2 per cent YOY. Europe has a 12.1 per cent share, (up 3.1 per cent YOY).
Charles Robinson of on-demand charter firm Enterjet says he’s seen a 46.3 per cent increase in PC-12 charter requests year-on-year to around 200 flights, particularly among younger under-35 tech entrepreneurs and company ‘exiteers’.
There’s no direct competitor to the PC-12, said one broker on condition of anonymity. ‘Beechcraft announced the Denali back in 2025. It’s due to be launched, we understand, in 2027. It’s expected to have a similar cabin size, configuration and planned versatility, but it’s all gone quiet,’ he said.
‘It’s a new airframe, new engine, and pilots are naturally a bit cautious about new planes. But there’s a couple of thousand PC-12s flying worldwide, and it’s so well-proven.’
