Colorado’s business aviation market is a mountain-and-metro story rolled into one — a single dominant field in the Denver suburbs, a second close behind it, and a long tail of resort and regional airports scattered across the Rockies and the Western Slope. Based on the current in-state fleet, 522 business jets and turboprops call Colorado home, spread across a wide mix of large-cabin jets, light jets, turboprops, and owner-flown aircraft.
Here’s a look at the Colorado business aviation market by the numbers. Every aircraft referenced below is a business jet or turboprop; the dataset does not include piston aircraft, helicopters, or airliners.
AN OLDER FLEET, WITH REAL DEPTH BEHIND IT
The average manufacture year across the 522 in-operation aircraft is 2004, with a median of 2006, and 23 percent of the fleet (118 aircraft) was built in 2015 or later. Nineteen percent (100 aircraft) date back before 1990. That’s an older skew than Arizona or Illinois — a market with a lot of well-used, well-flown equipment still in service alongside a steady stream of newer aircraft.
Ownership structure leans overwhelmingly toward aircraft held outright:
- Wholly owned: 500 aircraft (96 percent)
- Shared ownership: 22 aircraft (4 percent)
- Fractional ownership program: effectively none
As in most owner- and company-flown markets, fractional programs are all but absent in Colorado. Nearly every aircraft based in the state is owned directly by an individual or a company rather than split across a card program.
WHERE THE FLEET LIVES
Colorado’s business aircraft are based at 35 different airports, but the fleet is concentrated in metro Denver:
- Centennial Airport: 171 aircraft
- Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport: 88 aircraft
- Colorado Springs Airport: 36 aircraft
- Eagle County Regional Airport: 20 aircraft
- Aspen Pitkin County Airport: 18 aircraft
- Grand Junction Airport: 17 aircraft
Centennial alone accounts for 33 percent of the statewide fleet, and adding Rocky Mountain Metropolitan brings those top two fields to nearly 50 percent of every business jet and turboprop based in Colorado. Extend that to the top six airports and you’re looking at 67 percent of the entire state fleet. That’s an even more concentrated pattern than Arizona’s Scottsdale-anchored market: two Denver-area fields hold roughly half of Colorado’s fleet between them, with Colorado Springs as a clear third hub and the mountain resort airports — Eagle County, Aspen, and Grand Junction — forming a distinct secondary cluster tied to the ski and resort economy.
WHAT COLORADO FLIES
Citation leads Colorado by a wide margin, with 111 aircraft statewide. King Air is second with 50 aircraft, followed closely by Pilatus (49), Gulfstream (42), Socata (41), and Falcon (40).
By specific model, turboprops and owner-flown equipment dominate the list:
- Pilatus PC-12/45: 20
- Citation X: 18
- Piper Meridian: 17
- Conquest II: 14
- Pilatus PC-12 NG: 14
- Citation CJ3: 12
- King Air B200: 11
- Gulfstream G550: 11
- Learjet 35A: 10
- Cirrus Vision SF50 G2+: 10
No single model dominates Colorado’s fleet — the Pilatus PC-12/45 tops the list at under 4 percent of the total. Seven of the top ten models are turboprops or light, owner-flown aircraft, though the presence of the Citation X and Gulfstream G550 in the top ten also points to a genuine large-cabin, long-range segment layered on top of the owner-pilot base — a mix that fits a state serving both mountain-town access and coast-to-coast corporate travel.
WHAT’S ON THE MARKET RIGHT NOW
Of the 522 aircraft based in Colorado, 44 are currently listed for sale or available on inquiry, or about 8.4 percent of the total fleet — the highest turnover rate of the markets we’ve profiled so far. Ranked by which models have the most units on the market right now:
- Piper Malibu JetProp: 3 for sale
- Pilatus PC-24, Citation Bravo, Citation X, Citation V, Falcon 2000, Pilatus PC-12/45, Learjet 60XR, Conquest II, and Socata TBM-700C2: 2 for sale each
The rest of the for-sale inventory is a long tail of single listings that spans nearly the entire market — from turboprops like the Caravan 208 and King Air C90B, to light and midsize jets like the Citation CJ2+ and Hawker 900XP, up to large-cabin equipment like the Falcon 900EX and Gulfstream G-III. That spread suggests turnover happening across every price point in Colorado, not concentrated in one segment.
THE OPERATORS BEHIND THE FLEET
A handful of charter and management operators account for a meaningful share of the aircraft actually flying in Colorado:
- International Jet Aviation Services, Inc.: 16 aircraft
- CD Pilot and Aircraft Management, LLC: 12 aircraft
- Wheels Up Private Jets, LLC: 10 aircraft
- Mayo Aviation, LLC: 7 aircraft
Just behind that group, Aero Pro Owner and AirMax are tied at 5 aircraft apiece. International Jet Aviation Services sits clearly at the top of the Colorado market, well ahead of the next-largest operator — a more concentrated operator landscape than Arizona’s or Illinois’s, though several established regional names still fill out the rest of the field.
FLEET ACTIVITY
Among aircraft with recorded flight-hour data, the average airframe in Colorado’s fleet has logged just over 5,000 total flight hours. Combined with a fleet that skews older on average, that points to a market of aircraft that are being put to work rather than parked — consistent with a state where turboprops and light jets handle real mountain-airport access and regional travel, alongside a smaller group of large-cabin aircraft logging longer-range trips.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Colorado’s business aviation market is built around metro Denver, but it’s shaped as much by the mountains as by the city. Centennial and Rocky Mountain Metropolitan together hold about half the statewide fleet, Citation and Pilatus lead the model mix, and 96 percent of the fleet is owned outright rather than through fractional programs. For owners and buyers trying to understand where they fit into this market, the data points to a clear pattern: Colorado is a Denver-anchored, turboprop-and-light-jet-heavy market with a genuine mountain-resort segment layered on top, and the highest for-sale turnover of any state we’ve looked at so far.
Contact Holstein Aviation to talk through where your aircraft fits into the Colorado market, whether you’re buying, selling, or reevaluating how it’s managed.
