Revenue per flight hour measures what a school earns for each hour flown, set against the fully loaded hourly cost of fuel, maintenance reserves, insurance and overhead. Tracking it per aircraft exposes which airframes actually make money — and which quietly erode margin.
Revenue per flight hour measures what the school earns for each hour flown, set against the fully loaded hourly cost: fuel, maintenance reserve (including engine overhaul accrual), insurance, hangarage, financing and allocated overhead. Computed per aircraft, it exposes the fleet's real economics — including the popular aircraft that quietly flies at a loss because its rate never absorbed the overhaul reserve.
The revenue side has structure too: dual instruction, solo rental, hour-building blocks and simulator hours carry different rates and margins, so the fleet's mission mix — not just its hours — determines the money.
Why it matters for flight schools
Hourly rates in flight training are habitually set by copying the competitor across the field — which propagates everyone's costing errors. A school that knows its fully loaded cost per hour per airframe prices from facts, spots margin erosion when fuel or parts move, and makes fleet decisions on contribution rather than sentiment.
How FlightLogger handles it
FlightLogger combines billing data with per-aircraft flight and maintenance cost capture — so revenue and margin per flight hour per airframe is a live report, not an annual accounting archaeology project.
Frequently asked questions
What belongs in the fully loaded cost per hour?
Fuel and oil, maintenance including scheduled inspections and the engine/component overhaul reserve, insurance, parking or hangarage, financing or depreciation, and a defensible overhead allocation. Omitting the overhaul reserve is the classic way schools convince themselves an aircraft is profitable.
How do you improve revenue per flight hour?
Two levers: mix (shift hours toward higher-margin activities like dual instruction and simulator time) and utilization (spread fixed costs over more hours). Raw price increases are the third lever — easier to defend when the cost data is solid.