Private Plane Access Is a Perk That’s Taking Off in These U.S. Ski Towns

For some owners of luxury vacation homes, where they choose to buy has everything to do with how easy it is to get there. An extra perk: a destination where they can bypass commercial air travel and arrive on their own time on a chartered flight, jet share or their own plane. 

These days, ski town destinations like Telluride, Colorado; Park City, Utah; and Driggs, Idaho, are winning over buyers who are attracted to that convenience as much as they are to the cities’ luxury housing stock and world-class powdery slopes.

Compass agent Bill Fandel has lived and worked in Telluride, Colorado—a six-hour drive from the nearest international airport in Denver—for 35 years.

“The reputation has been that it’s hard to get to but in some ways it is what has saved us,” Fandel said. “It spared us some of the intensity of growth that affected other places.”

The city’s catching up now, with housing prices that skyrocketed during the pandemic. The average house in the mountain town was over $2 million as of December, per Zillow. The first major luxury development in town in 15 years is also underway in Telluride’s Mountain Village: the $1 billion development of the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences, where Fandel is co-leading sales. 

The project, designed by Olson Kundig, will have 26 private residences and 43 hotel residences ranging from $4 million to over $40 million, as well as 52 hotel rooms. It’s expected to break ground in the spring.

Fandel said Telluride’s never really been hard to get to for those in the know, with the Telluride Regional Airport just 5 miles from town.

“Private aviation is absolutely in love with the ease of access. It’s a critical piece of the puzzle for many people,” he said. “The idea that somebody can leave Dallas or San Francisco on a Friday afternoon, be here for dinner and be wheels up on Monday morning back to the office is particularly compelling.”

Anthony Salcito vacationed for years with his family in Park City, home to a handful of top-tier ski resorts, before he purchased a place of his own in town in 2024 at Grand Hyatt Deer Valley.

Salcito, a custom builder based in Scottsdale, Arizona, was attracted to the ease of arrival from his home city, just an hour by air, as well as the quality of the project by New York City-based developer Extell. He isn’t the only one: The 55 residences, which were delivered to buyers in November, sold out in June.

Salcito purchased a 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom condo with an amply sized sixth-floor deck overlooking a lake. Including the furniture, Salcito said he’s dished out about $4 million for the residence. He and his family spent the holidays at the condo, and Salcito suspects he’ll also routinely visit in the summer to escape the Scottsdale heat.

Salcito and his wife live close to the Scottsdale Airpark, where public charter operator JSX offers one-hour flights to Salt Lake City, a 35-minute drive from Park City. 

“They’re amazing and convenient,” he said of JSX and the ease of travel compared to using major commercial airlines.

Sheila Hall, an associate broker at Summit Sotheby’s International Realty, is handling sales at Deer Valley East Village, a major expansion of Park City’s iconic Deer Valley resort that includes the residences of Grand Hyatt Deer Valley. In all, the expansion will add 3,700 acres of skiable terrain as well as additional luxury residential, hotel and retail amenities to the resort.

She noted that many of the buyers she has worked with fly in and out of Heber City, about 10 minutes from Deer Valley East Village. She said it can accommodate most sizes of aircraft, and her clients like it because “they can fly in and out of it, pretty much without a set time.”

“People like to fly private because of the flexibility in their departure and arrival times and the ease, where they’re not dealing with someone else’s schedule,” she added.

George Wallen, a 79-year-old developer based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, purchased a vacation home in 2022 at Tributary, a private residential community in Driggs, Idaho, that’s an hour from the slopes of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and just five minutes from the Driggs-Reed Memorial Airport. 

Wallen’s four-bedroom, four-and-a-half bathroom home ran him just shy of $3 million, he said, and has become a gathering place for his family throughout the year. (While he’s given up skiing, his children and their families still hit the slopes.) They take advantage of Tributary’s David McLay Kidd-designed championship golf course in the warmer months and proximity to Jackson Hole in the winter and early spring.

A big influence on his decision to purchase at Tributary was how easy he could get there from Dallas-Fort Worth via non-commercial air travel. Driggs-Reed Memorial Airport is “an incredible amenity to that valley,” Wallen said, adding that he would have thought twice about purchasing at Tributary if he always had to fly through Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming. Although it’s the nearest commercial airport, it’s an hour away and can be dicier to travel to and from when road conditions are rough. 

Wallen said he’s made friends in the development, most of whom fly in privately to the small regional airport.

“It’s just super convenient … and such a luxury to have,” he said.