The Cessna Citation XLS+ can fly up to 2,100 nautical miles (3,889 km) as a ferry flight with no payload. With a full load of passengers and cargo, the range drops to approximately 1,500 nm (2,778 km). At its cruise speed of 430 kt, that's about 4h 53m of non-stop flying at ferry weight, or 3h 29m fully loaded.

The Citation XLS+ is the result of 40 years of Cessna refining a single concept: the midsize business jet that does everything well without excelling at any single metric. With 2,100 nautical miles of range, eight passengers, and Pratt & Whitney Canada PW545D engines, it handles the missions most charter customers actually book - two-to-three-hour hops between business hubs, weekend trips to vacation destinations, and the occasional transatlantic positioning flight via the Azores or Iceland.

The XLS has been the best-selling business jet in its category for multiple years, and its commercial longevity owes much to the operator economics: straightforward maintenance, widespread parts availability, and a training ecosystem that makes pilot transitions cost-effective. Charter operators deploying a single aircraft type across a large fleet benefit disproportionately from these features - every hour a pilot spends learning a new avionics quirk or waiting for an unusual part is revenue not being generated.

The cockpit uses Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics with integrated weather radar and terrain awareness systems - a mature, well-documented system that experienced Citation pilots find immediately familiar. For fractional ownership programs, where pilots may fly multiple aircraft types in a week, this familiarity has real value. The XLS+ represents Cessna's commercial philosophy: incremental improvement over a proven design rather than revolutionary reinvention. It's not the most exciting aircraft on this list, but it may be the most pragmatically successful.

Runway Requirements

Related Reading

Compare with