How much did President Pavel’s private flight from Morocco cost?

Czech President Petr Pavel flew back for the municipal elections from his holiday in Morocco on a Hawker 800 private jet operated by the Moroccan company Sarah Airways. The flight was not paid for from public budgets, said the president’s spokesman Vít Kolář. Market experts estimate that a flight like this costs hundreds of thousands of crowns.

According to a source close to the president, Pavel spent several days looking at ways to get back to Czechia in time for the vote. The distance between Prague and Casablanca, where he departed from, is about 2,580 kilometres. The president then flew back on the same plane.

What private flights cost

Martin Pražský, head of the airline Time Air, explains that the price cannot simply be derived from the number of hours in the air: it depends on where the aircraft is based and whether the carrier has another booking. As a benchmark, he cites a flight from Nice to London (about 1,050 kilometres, an hour and a half to two hours in the air). A small jet would cost roughly 10,000 euros (about 243,000 crowns), while a mid-size aircraft such as a Challenger 300 would run to 18–20,000 euros (438,000–487,000 crowns). The price is quoted for the whole flight, not per seat or per hour.

According to Pražský, a last-minute booking does not necessarily mean a surcharge – it can even be cheaper if the route matches where the carrier needs to reposition a plane. Bringing in an aircraft from far away, on the other hand, can make a trip more expensive. A diplomatic passport, he says, does not simplify flight preparation: the formalities and the submission of passenger and crew data are the same for everyone.

Aviation expert Petr Kováč of the firm EY told Czech Television that a single private flight between Morocco and Prague could cost around half a million crowns.

How the charter market works

David Vachuška, director of the broker Fusion Jet, said that in some cases a private plane can be booked just hours ahead: in ideal conditions a departure within Europe is possible in two to three hours. Longer routes require extra permits. The fastest departure his company has arranged was an hour and a half after the order.

The company does not quote hourly rates but gives a final price straight away. By his estimate, costs range from two to twenty thousand euros per flight hour (roughly 50,000–500,000 crowns). The price covers the rental of the entire aircraft, airport fees for passengers, the crew and everything else needed to operate the flight. He declined to estimate the cost of a Morocco–Czechia–Morocco trip.

Urgent orders make up about 20 percent of requests, mostly when a regular carrier cancels a flight. The main clients are entrepreneurs, but ordinary people who want to try this way of travelling once in a lifetime also fly, usually on a family holiday. Passengers go through the same checks and X-ray screening as on a regular flight and need to arrive about half an hour before departure. Details of every passenger are required in any case.

Read also: Compensation for delayed and cancelled flights in the EU: up to €600 in 2026

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz