Where do all those private jets from Teterboro Airport go? We found out

If you were a passenger on a recent private jet flight out of Teterboro Airport — say, the June 6 Flexjet flight to Farnborough, near London, England — you would have been dropped at Flexjet’s private Teterboro lounge, and could have sunk into a comfortable couch to wait for fellow travelers to arrive, perhaps by helicopter from Manhattan.

You might have grabbed a free snack, dipped a spoon into a scoop of gelato. Perhaps you kicked back sipping a glass of Maker's Mark or French Sancerre.

When your fellow passengers arrived, you would have swept through the Flexjet lobby doors — no onerous wait in a TSA security line — and stepped briefly across the tarmac to a Gulfstream G450, its sleek fuselage punctuated by signature porthole windows.

On board, the cabin would seem more like a living room, with seating areas for up to 16, and custom carpeting.

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There would be granite countertops in the galley, cut glassware to use, an orchid in a vase, fresh fruit, chocolate-dipped strawberries.

As you settled into a bespoke leather and velvet swivel seat, you could have placed your laptop on a polished mahogany table. Your seat’s belt buckle would be brushed brass.

After takeoff, as the jet headed southwest over Rutherford, it would have climbed only to about 1,500 feet, to avoid Newark Liberty Airport traffic above. Then the Gulfstream would have climbed again as it banked north over Roseland and Caldwell.

Once the two Rolls-Royce engines had the jet racing over the Atlantic at 45,000 feet, you could have indulged in a customized meal prepared by the on-board chef.

By the time the jet landed near London, it would have burned about 3,500 gallons of fuel.

The cost for the nearly seven-hour trans-Atlantic flight?

About $70,000.

Give or take.

Teterboro Airport started as a small airstrip in Bergen County’s rural marshland in 1919, known early on as the host of the Gates Flying Circus, an aerial barnstorming troupe. In the 1920s, when a plane needed to land on the unlit runway at night, it relied on the headlights of cars parked alongside.

But Teterboro — still largely home to small propeller planes into the 1980s — has transformed in recent decades into one of the busiest non-commercial airports in the U.S., with a combined 177,000 takeoffs and landings in 2024, an average of 488 a day — and a 21% jump since 2009.

That growth has been driven largely by private jet companies, including Flexjet, that offer an array of charter options for movie stars, entertainers, athletes, business executives — and anyone else who can afford it. Based on the client's choice of package and size of airplane, prices typically run $6,000 to $10,000 per flying hour.

But with that increased jet traffic comes the whine of airplane noise, exacerbating a festering frustration for residents, particularly those who live beneath the flight path for jets landing on Teterboro’s Runway 19.

The waiting lounge is seen during a tour of Flexjet, a private airline company, which operates out of Teterboro Airport on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025.

Teterboro’s growth mirrors a national trend. After peaking in 1999 during the dot-com boom, with 31.2 million hours flown nationwide, general non-commercial aviation had declined nearly 27% by 2013. But it bounced back up 18% by 2022, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

What makes Teterboro so attractive?

Location.

“Private jets follow the money,” said Joe Vincent, founder of Vincent Jets, which books charter flights for customers. “At Teterboro you’re seven, eight miles away from Manhattan, the center of wealth. And you’re in Bergen County, one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S.”

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Teterboro is Flexjet’s busiest location by 40%, said Megan Wolf, the company’s chief experience officer.

“Teterboro is such a great gateway to help people conduct business,” Wolf said. “Demand is only growing.”

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns Teterboro Airport. “Its proximity to New York City makes it a desirable business model,” said Aidan O’Donnell, the agency’s general manager for New Jersey airports.

Until 2000, a private entity operated the airport. Since the agency has taken over operations, “it has evolved into one of the preeminent general aviation airports in the U.S.,” O’Donnell said.

A view of the Flexjet hangar, a private airline company, at Teterboro Airport in Teterboro on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025.

The top destination from Teterboro is Washington Dulles International in the Virginia suburbs. With a flight from Teterboro, you can conduct a lobbying or business meeting in Washington and be home for dinner, Vincent said.

Vincent thinks Teterboro is in such demand that it could use another runway, but space is tight. So he expects spillover growth at nearby general aviation, non-commercial airports, such as Morristown Municipal, Essex County Airport in Fairfield, and Monmouth Executive Airport in Wall Township — given Netflix’s plan for a production studio at Fort Monmouth.

The clients who use Teterboro

So who are those people jetting over your head in and out of Teterboro on private jets?

Flexjet serves business and personal travel clients, and some people use it for both, Wolf said. “We have a guy in Atlanta who travels to India with us, to London and the Middle East for work, but then will fly for the weekend to St. Simon’s Island with his family, and to Costa Rica for his birthday," she said. "We like to get to know who you are.”

According to its website, Flexjet’s customer base includes Fortune 500 corporations and “ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” which means they have a net worth of at least $30 million. This group makes up 1% of the global millionaire population, but it holds 32% of the millionaire population’s total wealth, said Altrata’s 2024 World Ultra Wealth Report.

A view of the galley, kitchen area, inside of a Gulfstream G450 during a tour of Flexjet, a private airline company, which operates out of Teterboro Airport on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025.

Ralph Villecca Sr., executive director of the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum at Teterboro, said that when he worked at Honeywell near the airport, he often saw limousines lined up on Industrial Avenue, along Teterboro’s western edge.

“A common perception is that it’s the rich and famous and bougie, when it’s really all about people maximizing their time,” Vincent said. “I ask them when they knew it was time to fly private and they all tell me, ‘Your time is worth more than your money.’”

“Right now I’m seeing from a pleasure point a lot of people who can afford to fly private have two homes, and the second one is in Florida,” Vincent said. “Or they’re going to the Dominican Republic, Tortola, the Virgin Islands, St. Bart’s.”

Vincent Jets founder/president Joe Vincent poses for a photo at Teterboro Airport in Teterboro on Friday September 6, 2019.

Vincent has his share of Oscar winners and rappers among his clients as well.

“One guy wanted sushi, so I had to put a sushi chef on the flight from a local restaurant,” he recalled. Once the jet landed in Orlando, Vincent got the chef back to New Jersey on a commercial flight.

Then there was the girl whose miniature pet pony was a passenger on a Teterboro flight to the family’s Midwest ranch. Vincent got a tarp to cover the floor of the Lear jet cabin, where the pony hung out eating vegetables on a plate.

“You name it, I’ve done it,” he said.

Many private jet owners go to great lengths to hide their identity. If you look up the owners of jets that use Teterboro in the Federal Aviation Administration aircraft registry, you usually won’t see an individual person listed, but such entities as TVPX Aircraft Solutions Inc. and Bank of Utah, which serve as owner trustees.

Airplanes are parked next to each other while not use at Teterboro Airport on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

These companies provide owners with aircraft registration and trust services.

“Protecting the privacy of aircraft owners and passengers has become a greater priority over the last few years,” the TVPX website says. “Often owners and passengers have security concerns, need to maintain a competitive advantage over other similar businesses, want to avoid unwanted public or media attention, or simply wish to avoid commercial solicitation.

“TVPX has developed a flexible owner trust structure that can help customers protect their privacy,” the site says.

And Bank of Utah says it has “built a special expertise and reputation in aircraft trusts.” As the aircraft’s owner trustee, Bank of Utah turns “operational control of the aircraft over to the lessee who operates the aircraft, much like a car is leased.” Bank of Utah, as trustee, is listed in public records as the registered owner.

Bank of Utah is listed as the trustee of 3,268 aircraft in the FAA registry database, and TVPX is the trustee of 2,395 aircraft. 

Clients don’t use Teterboro just to fly somewhere else to make deals. They sometimes use the airport itself.

In December 2002, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones flew to Teterboro to discuss the head coaching job with Bill Parcells, the Bergen County native and legendary NFL coach who had won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants.

An airplane is parked in the property of Teterboro Airport on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

The men met for several hours on Jones’ private plane, parked at the airport in the shadow of Giants Stadium. Parcells took the Cowboys coaching job the next month.

Playing on Teterboro’s reputation as a travel hub for the wealthy, HBO’s hit show “Succession” set a scene there in Season 1. And in Season 4, the Roy family meets at Teterboro for a flight in a key scene. When that scene was filmed, however, Westchester County Airport stood in for Teterboro.

“A lot of people want to film here at Teterboro, but it’s not a suitable environment because it’s very busy,” said Scott Marsh, the airport’s manager of operations and security.

“We don’t really have areas off to the side” where crews could film a scene, he said.

Some of the rich and famous who use Teterboro have made headlines with their antics there.

In 2014, as MetLife Stadium hosted the Super Bowl, pop icon Justin Bieber, 19 at the time, was told by the captain of his private charter jet to stop smoking marijuana during his flight to Teterboro. NBC reported that marijuana smoke was so thick on the plane the pilots wore oxygen masks.

Bieber and friends were detained at Teterboro, then released after federal agents and dogs searched the plane, finding no drugs, law enforcement officials said.

Teterboro flights don’t always ferry the rich and famous around. They also ferry medical specimens.

Secaucus-based Quest Diagnostics, a major supplier of lab testing, owns nearly 20 aircraft, and lands at Teterboro at least twice a night, totaling more than 500 flights a year. Atlantic Aviation, one of the airport’s fixed-base operators, maintains Quest’s fleet.

Quest uses the planes to transport time-sensitive specimens from doctors’ offices and its own patient service centers across the country to its clinical lab in Clifton.

The lab results “can trigger and impact important health care decisions for the patients, so the turnaround time is critical,” said Scott Borton, Quest Diagnostics’ director of national air logistics.

Top destinations from Teterboro change by season

If you live in North Jersey, you’ve likely had Teterboro private jets fly over your head dozens of times. Where are they all headed?

NorthJersey.com obtained a year’s worth of Teterboro Airport arrival and departure data from FlightAware, covering November 2023 through October 2024.

In that time, there were more than 172,000 arrivals and departures, combined. That’s more than 14,000 a month.

The top destination from Teterboro was Washington Dulles, followed by Palm Beach, Florida, and Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts — the general aviation reliever for Boston Logan International.

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Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York, was the fourth-most-common destination from Teterboro — even though they are only about 20 miles apart and 50 minutes or so apart by car.

That’s because the charter companies often need to move planes to collect passengers. And Flexjet uses White Plains for its scheduled maintenance.

The top destinations from Teterboro vary by season. The favored destination in February 2024? Palm Beach, naturally, followed by Opa-locka, Florida, the general aviation reliever for Miami. Aspen, Colorado — the ski mecca — ranked 13th.

By July 2024, Palm Beach had fallen out of favor, replaced by Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, as well as Westhampton and East Hampton on Long Island.

Imagine being able to reach the Hamptons from North Jersey in 35 minutes — blithely soaring above the four-hour traffic tangle of the Cross Bronx Expressway, Cross Island Parkway and Long Island Expressway.

‘There’s definitely a lot of seasonality to it,” said Vincent, of Vincent Jets. “In January there’s a lot of spring break action, with ski trips — Jackson Hole and Aspen. May kicks off flights to Europe, through to October.”

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Several local events drive up Teterboro traffic — the semiannual New York Fashion Week in February and September, for instance, and the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.

National events can boost traffic as well. Las Vegas is not a top destination for Teterboro flights, but in 2024, during the few days leading up to Super Bowl LVIII there, 34 direct flights left Teterboro for Las Vegas airports.

Port Authority officials expect a surge in Teterboro activity next summer, as MetLife Stadium hosts eight FIFA World Cup soccer matches, including the final.

“This will be the center of it all for the FIFA delegation and VIPs,” said O’Donnell, of the Port Authority. “We expect a lot of activity when they are based in New York and traveling to games” in other host cities.

While the majority of Teterboro flights head to regional destinations, larger jets that now use the airport can fly greater distances without refueling.

“For years Teterboro was home to Piper Cubs and small propeller planes, and then they started with very small jets,” said Kathleen Canestrino, a former Hackensack deputy mayor who spent a decade on the Teterboro Airport Noise Abatement Advisory Committee. “Now look at the size of them — never in my life did I think you’d be able to fly to Europe from Teterboro.”

Not just Europe. Some recent nonstop destinations have included Asunción, Paraguay; Kigali, Rwanda; Atyrau, Kazakhstan; Changzhou, China; and Auckland, New Zealand.

Even though most people who live in North Jersey will never get to fly out of Teterboro, they benefit indirectly from it, O’Donnell argued.

Teterboro is a reliever airport to reduce the crush on the Port Authority's large commercial airports: Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia. “Teterboro is able to take business jets away from the commercial airports,” O’Donnell said. “We have capacity constraints. If Teterboro didn’t exist, those business aircraft would have to go somewhere.

“Trying to add more flights at the commercial airports wouldn’t work,” he said. “So there would be less choice and higher ticket prices for commercial passengers.

“So Teterboro’s a very strategic asset.”

How Teterboro operates

Teterboro Airport generated gross operating revenue of more than $64 million in 2023, according to the Port Authority’s most recent annual report, with $39 million in operating expenses.

Teterboro supports more than 5,000 jobs paying $362 million in annual wages and generates nearly $1.2 billion in annual sales activity, the Port Authority says.

The agency says its total annual budget of $9.4 billion — it also operates LaGuardia, JFK and Stewart airports as well as bridges, tunnels and the Port of New York and New Jersey — includes no tax revenue from New York City, New York State or New Jersey. The agency raises the money needed for improvement, construction or buying facilities mainly using its own credit. 

“The Port Authority receives no tax money to operate Teterboro,” O’Donnell said. “It’s self-sustaining.”

The agency covers costs through rental agreements with fixed-base operators, as well as aircraft landing fees and fuel fees. Teterboro sold 61.8 million gallons of jet fuel in 2024 — enough to fill three-quarters of Madison Square Garden.

An airplane takes off from Teterboro Airport on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

The landing fee is based on the weight of a plane. According to the schedule of fees, last revised in 2019, the landing fee for planes that weigh under 6,000 pounds is $21.25.

Those over 80,000 pounds pay $8.15 per 1,000 pounds. So the rate for a plane that weighs 100,000 pounds — the airport’s limit — is $815.

The North Jersey airspace is among the most complex in the world, said Marsh, the airport manager. You have multiple layers of activity — not only the Teterboro jets, but the commercial flights in and out of Newark Liberty, LaGuardia and JFK.

With that in mind, the FAA spent $73.4 million on a new Teterboro control tower, which opened in October 2024. It’s 157 feet tall — more than twice the height of the old tower from 1975.

At either end of Teterboro’s two runways are giant patches of soft concrete that crush easily — an engineered materials arresting system. “If a plane were to overrun the runway, the system rapidly slows the airplane through friction,” Marsh said.

The arresting systems were installed after a jet taking off from Teterboro in 2005 overran the runway, crossed Route 46 and slammed into a building. After that crash, a law introduced by U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg required all major airports to have a 1,000-foot buffer zone at the end of runways.

The Port Authority closes each runway for a few hours at staggered times each week to cut the lawn, check lighting and inspect the macadam. Each runway is grooved to help rainwater drain and prevent hydroplaning.

Because salt is corrosive and could affect aircraft aluminum, Teterboro doesn’t use it to control snow and ice on runways and ramps. Instead, it uses an aircraft-safe deicing chemical. Teterboro purchased nearly 89,000 gallons in 2024.

An office for U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Teterboro Airport on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

At Teterboro, passengers don’t need to endure the sort of Transportation Security Administration security and customs lines you’d slog through at Newark Liberty. There’s limited physical screening before boarding a private jet, and fewer limits on the size of liquid containers carried onboard or packed in luggage. “One of the reasons is the passengers generally all know one another — it’s not random individuals,” Marsh said.

Still, passengers get checked against a no-fly list, luggage gets screened, and the pilot is responsible for who’s on board. The TSA puts the security obligation on the aircraft operator. “There’s still a robust protocol in place,” Marsh said.

For international travelers, U.S. Customs officials at Teterboro will sometimes check passports while passengers are still seated on a jet. Other times passengers get processed at the customs office on site. There’s little wait.

Nefarious deeds

Just as Teterboro’s location makes it attractive to those doing business in Manhattan and North Jersey, the attraction extends to those with nefarious aims.

That included one of the 9/11 hijackers, Hani Hanjour, who was at the controls of American Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. In May 2001, Hanjour met with a flight instructor at Teterboro, the FBI said. The two took a "check ride" on a "Hudson tour."

Former Sen. Bob Menendez flew in the private jet of his ophthalmologist friend, Dr. Salomon Melgen, several times from the Dominican Republic to Teterboro — rides that became counts in Menendez’s 2017 bribery trial, which ended in a hung jury.

Teterboro was the centerpiece of financier Jeffrey Epstein’s global sex trafficking operation in the 1990s and early 2000s, court documents show. Epstein allegedly used his fleet of private jets to deliver dozens of sex slaves — some as young as 14 — to celebrities, royals and politicians.

His planes recorded at least 730 flights to and from Teterboro between 1995 and 2013, according to flight logs contained in court documents.

Bags of drugs that Edwin Spears and Leonardo Petrosillo were allegedly trying to smuggle into England.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 at Teterboro Airport after flying from Paris and was charged with two counts of sex trafficking. He was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell later that summer.

In December 2023, Edwin Spears, a Newark resident known as “Money” — and an admitted "five-star general" in the Nine Trey Gangsters set of the Bloods, with ties to the Lucchese crime family — was indicted with a North Jersey man after their arrest at Teterboro aboard a private plane with luggage bags and boxes allegedly containing narcotics.

The noise issue

Prospect Avenue in Hackensack is home to Hackensack University Medical Center and a cluster of 20- to 25-story residential buildings, many with balconies to provide a view.

But those streets also lie beneath the flight path for jets using Teterboro’s Runway 19.

Those residential towers “have lovely balconies that nobody can use,” said Canestrino, the former Hackensack deputy mayor.

in Hackensack on Thursday, July 17, 2025.

Even towns as far north as Woodcliff Lake and Park Ridge have complained about jet noise.

The Teterboro noise abatement committee, created in the 1980s, includes airport and municipal officials from towns within a 5-mile radius.

“Noise is tricky at any airport,” O’Donnell said. “It’s a constant push-pull.” He said the Port Authority works as a partner with the committee: “We work collaboratively and transparently. That doesn’t mean people stop complaining.”

For years, local officials lobbied for a new flight path to divert the Runway 19 jet traffic away from Hackensack’s Prospect Avenue, instead following Route 17, which is less residential.

The new approach became available in 2021. But data released in early 2022 showed that the flight path was minimally used.

Marsh said pilots generally use an instrument landing system, or ILS, a radio navigation system with ground-based equipment that guides a plane as it lands. The alternative approach uses GPS-satellite technology. Pilots are still more familiar with using the ILS technology.

Canestrino said that after speaking to pilots who fly the Teterboro route, her impression is that the equipment is not the reason the new route isn’t used.

A construction worker watches as an airplane flies overhead in Moonachie as they arrive at Teterboro Airport on Monday, July 21, 2025.

She said the air traffic controllers determine the advertised approach on a given day, and it usually is not the alternative route. The pilots would have to request permission to run the alternative route. “Even if they ask, they are rarely allowed to do it,” Canestrino said.

“We need buy-in from the FAA and air traffic control community,” she said. “Set up a schedule to use the alternate route on certain days, weather permitting.”

Asked why the alternative route is rarely used, the FAA said: “At most airports, pilots can choose from multiple approaches by coordinating with air traffic control. Any approach is available upon request, including the alternate approach into Runway 19” at Teterboro. “The FAA does not mandate which approach pilots use.”

Eight noise monitors were installed around the airport’s perimeter in the 1980s. Noise limits have been placed on jets. If an aircraft operator receives three noise violation notices within a two-year period, its aircraft could be permanently banned.

A microphone monitors the noise of airplanes operating out of Teterboro Airport on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. The Teterboro Aircraft Noise Abatement Advisory Committee handles the relationship between residents in the area and the airport operators.

To reduce noise disruption at night, the airport has a voluntary restriction against flights between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The airport also bars planes that weigh more than 100,000 pounds, to “to keep the jet profile capped,” O’Donnell said. And engine technology today makes even larger jets quieter, he said.

Canestrino has lived in the same house for 52 years, on the Hackensack border with Maywood. “If I’m on the deck and the phone rings, I need to go inside and close the door to be able to hear someone,” she said.

“We’re talking about folks with the means to spend that kind of money, and they’re flying over lower socioeconomic areas and those lives are really getting disturbed,” Canestrino said. “There’s social injustice in this as well.”

Small airport with a colorful history

How did Teterboro Airport get its name?

Thank former Montclair resident Walter C. Teter. In 1917, Teter, who worked in the investment and securities business, bought the property the airport would sit on. At the time, the surrounding area was home to swamps and a golf course Teter helped organize.

The next year, the property was used to convert World War I fighter planes into airmail carriers. 

By 1926, the airfield already had a busy Fokker plane manufacturing plant and a Wright Aeronautical test hangar on site. Teter and Anthony Fokker were good friends.

An aerial barnstorming troupe called the Gates Flying Circus set up shop at Teterboro in 1926 and awed visitors with daring stunts. This remnant is at the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum at Teterboro Airport.

That year, an aerial barnstorming troupe called the Gates Flying Circus set up shop at Teterboro and awed visitors with daring stunts, according to “From the Balloon to the Moon,” a look at New Jersey aviation history by H.V. Pat Reilly, the founder of the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum.

The circus had seven planes, mostly biplanes painted bright red. The circus stayed at Teterboro for several years, inspiring North Jersey’s youth to take up the new field of piloting.

“A majority of the most famous aviators were found at Teterboro,” Reilly writes. “They were a dashing group in their boots and riding breeches, caps, goggles and flowing scarfs. Their devil-may-care attitude and rowdy flamboyance made them particularly attractive to young ladies.”

They staged a huge show in late August 1927, drawing thousands to watch the daredevils’ stunt flying, parachute jumping, wing walking and changing planes in midair.

A archival photograph of Teterboro Airport hangs in an office of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in Teterboro on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

In July 1926, a crowd gathered at Teterboro for the first landing of commercial planes — two that had been made by Fokker at Teterboro — as part of U.S. mail service between Boston and New York. The planes had taken off from Plainfield, made it to Boston, and started back late in the day.

By then it was getting dark, and officials realized the planes would have a hard time finding the unlit Teterboro strip. So workers parked their cars along the runway edge and turned their headlights on. The planes successfully landed with the mail.

Charles Lindbergh had his Spirit of St. Louis serviced at Teterboro. Amelia Earhart made her historic trans-Atlantic flight in 1932 in a plane designed at Teterboro.

The airport was closed by the military during World War II to store fighter jets in case of an attack on New York. At the height of the war, Teterboro was also a major employer, with tens of thousands of workers at the Bendix and Curtiss-Wright facilities, said Villecca, of the of the Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum.

A signature of Amelia Earhart in a copy of a logbook at the Aviation Hall of Fame & Museum of New Jersey on the Teterboro Airport property on Thursday, July 24, 2025. Amelia Earhart landed at Teterboro Airport on May 18, 1930.

Developer Fred Wehran reopened the airport after the war, paving the runways and turning it into a busy privately-run airport. He sold it in 1949 to the Port Authority, which in 1970 leased it to Pan Am World Airways, and then to its successor organization, Johnson Controls, for 30 years.

In the late 1960s, Pan Am offered helicopter service to JFK and the Pan Am Building in Manhattan for a few years through New York Airways, but the service was canceled due to low ridership.

Today, Blade Air Mobility operates helicopter service between Teterboro and Manhattan, as well as the Hamptons.

In 2000, the Port Authority assumed full operation of the airport.

Through the late 1990s and early 2000s, Teterboro was a regional hub for late-night Federal Reserve charter flights, as carriers brought in canceled checks and then redistributed them to banks throughout the Northeast.

Ralph C. Villecca Sr., executive director, poses for a photo in front of the Teterboro Airport exhibit at the Aviation Hall of Fame & Museum of New Jersey on the Teterboro Airport property on Thursday, July 24, 2025.

One night in 1992, 14 white plastic bags from one of those Teterboro flights — a turbo prop bound for Cleveland — plopped down into Pennsylvania farm fields, The Record reported.

Shortly after the plane — with 1,300 pounds of canceled checks aboard — took off from Teterboro, a piece of propeller broke off and ripped into the fuselage, knocking out one of the two engines. The bags, labeled “The Fed,” had been jettisoned by the plane’s crew to lighten the load and maintain altitude.

The private companies: Flexjet, NetJets, Wheels Up, others

Today, there are several fixed-base operators at Teterboro that focus on servicing aircraft on the ground — fueling them, cleaning them inside and out, deicing planes in bad weather, handling luggage, providing a pilots' lounge, housing planes in a hangar, ensuring that food catering is ordered from local businesses.

Those companies include Atlantic Aviation, Signature Aviation and Jet Aviation.

Jet Aviation also provides private charter jet service. Other big charter players include Flexjet, NetJets and Wheels Up.

An airplane is parked outside of a Jet Aviation hangar at Teterboro Airport on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

They each have several different membership options of varying costs for their clients.

Flexjet, a privately-held company based in Cleveland, was created in 1995. It owns and operates more than 270 aircraft and a dozen helicopters, featuring the Sikorsky S-76.

In addition to Teterboro, Flexjet has private terminals at Westchester County Airport and airports in Naples, Florida; Van Nuys, California; and Dallas. It plans to open more private terminals by 2026 in Miami; West Palm Beach, Florida; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Bozeman, Montana.

Flexjet has more than 40 custom interior designs across its fleet, featuring hand-sewn premium leathers, exotic woods, special metalwork and tailored textiles. Its Red Label design team collaborates with manufacturers to include fold-down ottomans, pop-up kibitzer seating, custom divans and credenzas.

“We want to provide that personal touch to make this as close to flying your own jet as possible,” Flexjet’s Wolf said. “We want it to feel like being in your own living room or study.”

The company also offers clients access to such events as the Snow Polo World Cup St. Moritz, the Wimbledon tennis tournament, the Royal Ascot horse race and the Concours d’Elegance Pebble Beach automobile show.

Airplanes are parked outside an Atlantic Aviation hangar at Teterboro Airport on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

NetJets, based in Columbus, Ohio, is owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. It has been in business for more than 60 years and describes itself as a pioneer in the shared-ownership private jet model.

NetJets plans to open its own exclusive footprint at Teterboro in 2026, with a private ramp and hangar space, a lounge for clients, VIP conference rooms, a refreshment station and dedicated parking.

NetJets programs start at $215,000, or $8,600 per hour. It oversees more than 1,200 flights daily worldwide and has 12,500 clients, including 40 companies in the Fortune 100.

There are many reasons to fly a private jet out of Teterboro, if you can afford it. There’s the convenience. The ability to fly nonstop — even to small markets that commercial airlines don’t serve. Skipping the long security lines. The onboard chef and high-end amenities.

But Vincent notes another, intangible factor at play as well: the attraction, the allure of flying in a style, in a manner that most people can’t.

“Most people are in awe,” Vincent said. “It’s the sexiest thing in the world.

“There’s nothing more beautiful on earth.”