Private jet flyers traveling to and from Palm Beach International Airport, the country's second-busiest airport for private jet movements, should prepare for security stops, longer flight times, delays, and higher costs starting next week. They can blame the Temporary Flight Restrictions, or TFRs, as they are known, which will be in effect when President Donald J. Trump is visiting Mar-a-Lago.
The TFRs were in place during Trump's term as the 45th President of the United States and are related to his residence, which is about three miles east of the airport.
One executive who spoke on background said that based on Trump's first term, the expectation is that he will visit a couple of times a month between October and April.
A report earlier today in the Palm Beach Daily News asserts there will be "more frequent and longer presidential trips -- and more high-profile visits from world leaders."
Visits from foreign heads of state also will impact private flyers.
The timing of visits, often the weekend, coincides with other snowbirds who visit their second homes and luxury hotels in the Florida resort to escape the cold.
TFRs will also be in place when Trump visits his New Jersey club in Bedminster, New Jersey, or his apartment in the Trump Tower in New York City.
When the TFRs are in place, aviation-related businesses, such as flight training, maintenance test flights, and sightseeing flights, are banned within the 10-mile inner zone that includes PBI.
Crop dusting and utility and pipeline survey operations must be approved on a case-by-case basis.
So, what is the impact on those of you who favor the private skies?
If flying into PBI, you must start or transit five gateway airports.
Airports include Westchester County Airport north of New York City, Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, Manhattan's main private jet airport, Dulles International Airport outside of Washington D.C., Orlando International Airport, and Fort Lauderdale International Airport.
The Transportation Security Administration will conduct security screenings for passengers and luggage at the gateway airports.
Reservations are required and must be made at least 24 hours in advance.
Appointments are only available from 8 am to 5 pm, with the final appointment at 4:45 pm.
Conversely, there is a similar screening for departures.
Three FBOs - private jet terminals - and a private facility used by NetJets will be available for screening.
One twist is that the TFRs will be announced no sooner than 72 hours before implementation.
If you booked a flight before the TFR is implemented, you will still have to comply.
The rules will also create operational challenges for private jet operators.
Big operators like NetJets and Flexjet use what's called a floating fleet model.
An airplane drops off one customer and then flies to pick up the next customer, creating what is referred to as an empty leg.
South Florida is a particularly efficient place to operate, with busy airports close to each other. This means shorter repositioning flights, less fuel consumed and less expense to operators since customers are only billed for the time they are in the aircraft.
Without the TFR, a crew dropping off a customer in Miami at 7 pm would likely reposition the jet to PBI that evening if they had a client there with an early morning departure, thus minimizing possible delays.
Now, before continuing to PBI, the crew would have to fly up to Fort Lauderdale and wait until 8 am the following day - or whenever they can get a screening slot.
Each landing and takeoff also brings an airplane closer to expensive and required maintenance based on cycles.
Witham Field in Stuart, Florida, 40 miles north of Palm Beach, or Boca Raton Airport, 25 miles to the south, are alternates. However, BCT has capacity limits on how much of the overflow it can handle.
An airport freeze at PBI, including a runway sweep and halt to operations that starts about 10 minutes before a VIP arrival and lasts until they clear the field, will create additional delays.
In addition to Trump, VIPs would include the arrivals and departures of foreign leaders.
Private aviation executives say air traffic delays in Florida and rocket launches from Cape Canaveral that impact flight paths are already an issue.
D.J. Hanlon, an executive vice president with Flexjet, the second-largest charter/fractional operator in the U.S., says clients generally understand that it is necessary security for the leader of the free world.
Data from WingX shows Flexjet was second among private jet operators, with 6,449 flights in and out of PBI last year.
NetJets was the largest operator 2024, with 19,489 arrivals and departures, 22.3% of the total per WingX.
NetJets declined to comment.
Hanlon says Flexjet and other business jet operators successfully deal with TFRs and other challenges on a daily basis, and the company's operations team is set up to handle them.
He expects any issues to be solved quickly.
"This is just another challenge that our ops and scheduling team will deal with, and (with) some slight adjustments...we'll figure out where to go. I think the hard part is getting too excited about something that, at the end of the day (during) his last term in office, ran really smoothly down in Florida," Hanlon says.
Airshare CMO Andy Tretiak agrees. He says, "During his first term, we don't recall his travel having a major impact on our operations."
However, others are concerned that the number of private jet flights at the airport -- 87,297 movements in 2024 -- is 55% more than in 2017, Trump's first year in the White House.
For those who aren't in the big fractional programs where you can typically book or cancel flights without penalty up to 10 hours before departure, experts say read the fine print and proactively consider airports outside the TFR.
Director of Client Service Patty Hernandez of Miami-based charter broker Unity Jets says operators will likely charge customers cancellation penalties if a TFR is implemented inside the cancelation window.
There are also likely to be extra post-flight charges for extra flight time, the security stops inbound and other expenses that will be passed along to the customer.
Craig Ross, CEO of Aviation Portfolio, an advisory that supports full and fractional aircraft owners, says, "Flyers should double check and get in writing any waivers they are promised for taxi time, segment minimums, or extra flight hours incurred due to stops at gateway airports when the TFR is in effect.
Ross says extra charges are not a cash grab by flight providers. "These costs reflect the extra flight time, the cost of pilots, ground handling from extra stops, extra resources in operations and dispatch, and so forth. Most operators are not using it as an excuse to make more money. They are simply trying to ensure they recover hard costs they will incur," he says, adding, "The TFRs can be implemented on short notice -- and last time, we saw that operators enforced cancelation restrictions even if the TFR was implemented inside the cancelation window. So, if you are going to fly to PBI or an airport under the Mar-a-Lago TFR, you need to consider booking your flight to an airport outside the TFR."
One operator isn't waiting until Monday, when Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States in Washington, D.C.
Earlier this month, Tradewind Aviation moved its flights to Witham Field in Stuart. It operates scheduled flights by-the-set from a private terminal at PBI to the Bahamas.
Chief Commercial Officer David Zipkin says, "We decided the disruptions wouldn't be worth it."