Buffet’s Departure and what of the Future of NetJets

Warren Buffett’s recent departure from Berkshire Hathaway marks the end of an era for one of the world’s best-known companies. But for the business aviation industry, the more interesting question may be what happens to the aviation businesses Buffett helped build after he is no longer at the helm. Buffett has stepped down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and become chairman emeritus, with his son Howard Buffett taking over as chairman and Greg Abel continuing as chief executive. Berkshire’s aviation interests include NetJets, Executive Jet Management and FlightSafety International. Of those businesses, NetJets perhaps best illustrates Buffett’s influence on the sector. Berkshire acquired NetJets in 1998 for $711 million.

Buffett did not simply treat the company as another investment. He personally promoted NetJets and became one of the most recognisable advocates for private aviation. His endorsement also appears to have influenced how the wider financial market viewed the sector. Flexjet chairman Kenn Ricci has previously credited Berkshire’s acquisition of NetJets with helping him secure the financing needed to expand his own business.

That influence matters because NetJets helped popularise a model of private aviation that sits somewhere between traditional aircraft ownership and charter. Instead of buying an entire aircraft, a customer can acquire a fractional interest and access the aircraft through a wider programme. Others may use NetJets’ jet-card offerings to obtain access without owning an aircraft at all. The attraction is relatively straightforward: customers can access private aviation without taking on all of the cost and responsibility associated with owning and operating an aircraft themselves.

The legal implications may be less straightforward. When one person owns an aircraft and operates it themselves, responsibility would be relatively easy to identify. A programme such as NetJets can create a more complicated structure. Ownership, management and operation may involve different parties. The customer may have an ownership interest, while another organisation manages the aircraft, arranges flights, provides or employs crew and deals with much of the infrastructure required to keep the aircraft operating. That can raise a fundamental question for aviation regulation: who is actually responsible for the operation?

The answer matters because aviation law does not necessarily regulate aircraft simply according to who owns them. It can also look at how aircraft are operated and where responsibility for the operation sits. Questions such as who controls a flight, who is responsible for the crew and maintenance, and who bears responsibility for compliance and safety may become particularly important when an aviation business is structured around multiple owners and a central programme operator. This could be one reason NetJets is more interesting from a legal perspective than its description as a “private jet company” might suggest. Its growth reflects a broader shift in business aviation away from a simple model of one owner and one aircraft towards increasingly sophisticated combinations of ownership, management and access.

Regulators have had to respond to that evolution. In the United States, for example, the Federal Aviation Administration introduced specific rules for fractional ownership as the industry developed. The important point is not the technical detail of those rules, but what their existence may demonstrate: when the way aircraft are owned and operated changes, regulatory frameworks would need to adapt with it.

That issue is unlikely to disappear with Buffett. If anything, Berkshire’s continued ownership of NetJets could make the transition to a new generation of leadership an opportunity to consider how the business will evolve. NetJets is now a substantial aviation operation, with more than 9,000 employees at the end of 2025 and options for thousands of new aircraft. The business is far removed from the relatively novel proposition Berkshire acquired in 1998. For Howard Buffett and the wider Berkshire leadership, the legal challenge could therefore be less about preserving a particular definition of private aviation and more about ensuring that responsibility remains clear as the business model becomes more sophisticated.

That could have practical consequences. As ownership, management and operation become separated, businesses may need to understand which regulatory requirements apply to each part of the operation and who is responsible for satisfying them. For regulators, the challenge may be to ensure that the rules continue to reflect the substance of the operation rather than simply the way a service is marketed.

The issue also extends beyond the United States. Different jurisdictions take different approaches to private aviation, charter and commercial air transport, but the underlying question may be similar: when an aircraft is owned by one party and operated through a complex commercial structure involving others, where does legal responsibility sit? Buffett’s aviation legacy is therefore about more than the value of NetJets or Berkshire’s investment. His public endorsement helped to raise the profile of private aviation as a major business sector, while NetJets helped demonstrate the commercial potential of models between full aircraft ownership and traditional charter.

Buffett’s departure does not necessarily end that evolution. If anything, it may mark the point at which the businesses he helped establish must operate without the extraordinary personal influence of their founder and advocate. For aviation lawyers, that makes the transition worth watching. The question may no longer simply be whether business aviation is private or commercial, but rather if the legal framework can keep pace with an industry in which ownership, management, access and operational responsibility are increasingly divided between different parties.

© Lawrence Power, Whitestone Aviation 2026

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