To start off you should have in mind:

- Where you want to go, since the distance between these two locations helps define the size of aircraft you will need. The longer the distance the larger the size of aircraft you will need, unless you are happy to stop for refueling.

- The number of people and the amount of baggage you will be travelling with. So more people and/or more baggage will require a larger, more expensive aircraft

Other items that can affect the price are the departure time and date, since prices increase during periods of peak demand. Your return plans are another key pricing element, so if the plane just takes you one way and has to fly back empty you may end up covering the cost of that empty flight.

For a full list of the types of things that you could be charged for, see our earlier article Private Jet Charter Costs - What's on the Invoice?

So having said all the above, we asked Patrick Harris, President at Velocity Jets to provide some examples of typical flight costs in a range of light, mid, and heavy jets. The prices below are all inclusive prices.

• Miami (MIA) to Los Angeles (VNY) flight time 5.2 hours,  light jet $15k, mid jet $17k and heavy jet $23k
• New York (TEB) to London (EGGL) flight time 6.1 hours,   heavy jet $40-60K
• Chicago (MDW) to New York (TEB) 2 hour flight,    light jet $7k, mid jet$ 9k, heavy jet $12k
• St. Maartin (TNCM) to Miami (MIA) 3.5 hour flight,   light jet $12k, mid jet, $15k heavy $18-20k
• Chicago (MDW) to Los Angeles (VNY) 3.5 hour flight,   light jet $10k, mid jet $12k, heavy jet $15-18k

Some other examples of prices come from Avinode, which gathers a large amount of data on the charter marketplace. Their recent data shows the average price per hour including taxi rate + fuel surcharges, for various aircraft including:

Midsize Jets

Heavy Jets

All of the above average prices have increased over the last 6 months.

If you're looking at chartering a plane and plan to use a charter broker, there's good list of questions to ask a private air charter broker or service in this article.