King Air 350 Charter from Miami

Who books a 350i out of South Florida

Three groups keep the based fleet busy. The first is regional business travel that never touches an airline hub: agriculture and packing operations out toward Homestead, Immokalee and LaBelle, marine and construction firms working the Gulf coast, and family offices with property in Naples and Marco Island. Five to eight people go out in the morning and are home for dinner, and the aircraft goes to the field nearest the site rather than the field with the longest runway.

The second is the Bahamas group that is not travelling light. Several Out Island strips are short, narrow and lightly equipped, and the practical question is not whether a jet could theoretically land there but whether an operator will dispatch one at the weight you want to carry. A 350 lands on a short runway with the seats full and the baggage bay loaded, which is why fishing, diving and construction charters keep choosing it over faster aircraft.

The third is the buyer who wants two engines over water. It is a preference rather than a regulatory requirement, and single-engine turbines fly to the islands from South Florida every day, but a portion of corporate travel policies and a larger portion of passengers simply want a second engine on a leg with 100 miles of open water underneath. On the turboprop shelf, the 350 is the twin.

Everyone in those three groups is buying the same thing: cabin volume and runway access, not speed. If the trip is a straight run up the East Coast on a long runway at both ends, this is not the aircraft to argue for.

King Air 350 charter Miami: published specifications

These are typical-configuration figures. Individual airframes differ with interior fit, winglets and how a Part 135 operator loads them, so read the table as a planning sheet rather than a guarantee for a specific tail number.

The cabin, described without varnish

At 57 inches of cabin height nobody stands up. You climb the airstair, stoop for a few steps and sit down. Once seated the aircraft is comfortable in a way the dimensions undersell: the standard double club puts four facing pairs around fold-out executive tables, and at 19.5 feet the cabin is longer than most light jets, so legroom in the club seats is generous rather than tolerable.

The lavatory is the honest headline. It is a belted, curtained arrangement — an aft belted lavatory seat with a curtain rather than a door. It works, it is used, and on the 35 to 60 minute legs that dominate South Florida flying it rarely comes up. On a three-hour run to the eastern Bahamas with a mixed group it comes up immediately, and that alone pushes some buyers into a light jet.

Noise is the other thing brochures skip. Two PT6A engines swinging propellers a few feet from your shoulder produce a constant low drone. Later airframes have effective active noise cancellation in the sidewalls and the improvement is real, but conversation still takes more effort than it does in a jet. Bring headsets if the flight is a working one, because connectivity is not a given either: operator-dependent; a good share of the south florida 350 fleet carries gogo avance l3.

Baggage is where the aircraft quietly wins. 71 cubic feet loads through a large aft door at ramp height, so dive tanks, tarpon rods, golf bags and trade-show cases go aboard without negotiation. Cabin width of 54 inches is narrower than the PC-12's, which you notice at the shoulders in the club seats and nowhere else.

What it does well from Miami, and where it runs out

The turboprop class flies miami to nassau, the exumas, turks and caicos, atlanta or washington non-stop. The 350 sits at the fast, long-legged end of that class, so nothing in the near Caribbean is out of reach on range. The limit is patience, not fuel: at 312 knots, every hundred miles costs you noticeably more clock than it does in a light jet, and the difference compounds past about two hours.

Runway access is the flip side, and in South Florida it is worth money. Pompano Beach Airpark tops out near 4,500 feet and is a turboprop field by design; the 350 uses it comfortably while most jets cannot. Boca Raton has a single runway of roughly 6,276 feet that weight-limits heavier types on departure, and the 350 simply is not affected. Naples Municipal and Marco Island Executive are similar stories, with the added constraint of Naples' noise programme.

Where it stops making sense is the northbound corridor. Miami to New York is 950 nm and Miami to Boston 1,085 nm; a 350 will fly either with a stop or, on a light load, without one, but you will spend a long time doing it and a light jet closes the gap for a modest premium. Anything west of Texas is a two-leg day, and the Miami to Los Angeles run of 2,035 nm is out of the question.

Hourly rate range and what actually moves a quote

The typical market range for a South Florida-based 350i is $2,600–$3,400 per flight hour, against $1,900–$3,400 for the turboprop class as a whole. The band is where quotes usually land, not a price list — December through April prices at the top of it and quiet September weeks often below.

Two line items move a real number more than the hourly rate does. The first is the positioning leg: if the aircraft is hangared at Opa-locka and your trip starts at Opa-locka you pay for the hours you fly, and if the only available 350 is in Tampa you pay for it to come and get you. The second is the daily minimum on multi-day trips, which quietly reprices an itinerary made of two 40-minute legs and an overnight. Our charter cost guide breaks those items down, and the hourly rate comparison by class shows where turboprops sit against the jets above them.

Judge it per trip rather than per hour. On a 150 nm island run the 350 at the top of its band will undercut a light jet at the bottom of its own, because the jet's speed advantage is swallowed by taxi, climb and descent. Stretch the same comparison to 900 nm and the arithmetic inverts.

If the budget will not stretch to a turboprop at all, the shelf below it is the piston twin: a Piper PA-31 Navajo Chieftain takes 6 people at 180 knots for $850–$1,400 per hour. It gives up two seats, 132 knots of cruise and half the baggage volume, so it only makes sense on short Florida legs where the saving is the point.

Against the PC-12 NGX and the CJ3+

Versus the [Pilatus PC-12 NGX](/aircraft/turboprops/pilatus-pc-12/). The Pilatus is cheaper per hour, wider in the cabin and has a cargo door that swallows things no King Air door will take. The 350 answers with more speed, a higher ceiling, substantially more baggage volume and a second engine. If your trip is eight seats and hard luggage, the 350 is the better fit; if it is four people, a surfboard quiver and a tight budget, the PC-12 wins.

Versus the [Citation CJ3+](/aircraft/light-jets/citation-cj3/). The CJ3+ is the step into a real jet: an enclosed lavatory, a quieter cabin, and cruise high enough to fly over most of the summer weather rather than through it. It costs more per hour and, under about an hour of flying, does not save enough time to justify the difference. The line most South Florida buyers draw sits around the two-hour mark.

Questions worth asking before you sign

• Ask for the tail number and the year the interior was refurbished. 350 cabins vary far more between airframes than the airframes do between each other.
• Confirm the crew complement in writing. Most South Florida 350 charter work is flown by two pilots, but get it stated rather than assumed.
• For anything crossing to the Bahamas, confirm life rafts, life vests and the operator's eAPIS filing process, and send passport details early rather than at the FBO.
• If a destination field is short, unlit or has published quiet hours, ask the operator to confirm performance and after-hours availability against your return time before you book the hotel.
• Ask whether the quoted hours include repositioning, and what the daily minimum is. Send us the itinerary and we will get those answers against the specific airframe rather than the category.