Olbia to Nice is a 361 km crossing of about 0 h 52, Olbia Costa Smeralda to Nice Cote d'Azur, normally on a light jet. From €4 200 for the whole aircraft, one way. Send the dates and the passenger count and a written quotation follows inside 30 minutes; the operations desk is staffed at every hour on +357 95 119759.
The way off the Costa Smeralda: fifty minutes over the Ligurian Sea and into the business terminal at Nice. This is the leg flown at the end of a stay rather than the start of one, and in August it is also the direction the empty aircraft are going.
REQUEST A QUOTERead this crossing from the Sardinian end and one fact explains most of it. Olbia recorded 11,848 business-aviation movements in 2023 against Nice's 37,425, but Nice spreads those across the year while Olbia crams almost all of its into July and August - the operator brokers reported Milan Linate to Olbia as its single busiest city pair in July 2025. Aircraft that cannot park on that ramp leave it empty, which is why a westbound crossing is often easier to place at short notice than an eastbound one. The flying itself is 361 km and undemanding. The scheduling is where this route actually lives.
A short crossing between two airports that peak in the same eight weeks, and the two ends do not present the same problem. Olbia is where the crossing starts and, in season, where the difficulty sits: not the runway or the slot but the ramp. Nice is where it ends, and it ends easily. There is one alternative arrival worth knowing about if the party is heading for a boat rather than for the city.
| Airport | Codes | Great-circle from Olbia | Suits you if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olbia Costa Smeralda | OLB / LIEO | departure | Where the crossing starts: the airport for Porto Cervo, Porto Rotondo, Baja Sardinia and the whole north-east coast. In high summer the binding constraint is ramp parking rather than runway or slot, and that matters to a departure more than people expect - the aircraft taking you home has quite possibly flown in empty that morning to collect you. |
| Nice Cote d'Azur | NCE / LFMN | 361 km | Where the crossing ends. Europe's second busiest business-aviation airport, with the business terminal separate from the scheduled ones, so the walk from the aircraft to the car is short at any hour. It also holds the deepest choice of light jets on this coast, which is why the aircraft for a crossing in either direction is more often found at this end than at the Sardinian one. |
| Cannes Mandelieu | CEQ / LFMD | 362 km | Twenty-four kilometres west of Nice, so a fractionally longer crossing at 362 km. The right arrival if the party is going straight to a boat at Cannes or Golfe-Juan rather than into Nice itself. Business jets up to a certain size only, which is worth saying at the enquiry rather than after the aircraft is chosen. |
Airport coordinates and codes: OurAirports open dataset, retrieved 23 August 2026. Movement counts: EBAA 2023 via Private Jet Card Comparisons, 4 June 2024.
Three hundred and sixty-one kilometres over water is a light-jet sector whichever way round you fly it, and it is a sea crossing, which is the reason to be on a twin-engine jet rather than one of the single-engine turboprops sometimes proposed for short Mediterranean hops. Going home there is a second thing to look at before the seat count: the hold. Nobody leaves the Costa Smeralda with less luggage than they arrived with, and on a light jet the hold runs out well before the seats do. Give us the bag count at the same time as the passenger count and the answer will be a type that actually takes it rather than one that nearly does.
Six to eight passengers, 3,650 km of range and a 2.27 cubic metre hold - the largest of the three, which is the number that matters on the way back. Ten times the range this crossing needs, and that margin is exactly what you want over water. It is the type we put forward first when the party is at the top of the seat count and the bags have accumulated over a fortnight.
See the Embraer Phenom 300 ›Six to seven passengers, and the economical choice on a fifty-minute crossing. It is also usually the easiest type to place at short notice in July, which on a Saturday morning out of Olbia is often what decides whether you leave when you meant to rather than four hours later. Fewer bags than the Phenom will take, but for a party travelling light it is the sensible answer.
See the Cessna Citation CJ2+ ›Six to seven passengers with a 2.07 cubic metre hold. This is the type in one of our own published empty-leg examples, and on this direction that is not a coincidence: the westbound crossing off the island is where those legs tend to appear. Worth asking about if your departure day is not fixed to the hour.
See the Citation Bravo ›Every type above has its own page on this site and the passenger and hold figures are taken from those pages. A party too large for a light cabin makes the same crossing on a Citation XLS+ or a Hawker 800XP; ask for one of those at the enquiry rather than at the aircraft door.
From €4 200 one way. Indicative starting price for this route, rounded down. The date, the aircraft actually available and airport fees move it — tell us your dates and we confirm within 30 minutes.
No published price for Olbia to Nice has reached us from a source we would reprint, so read the figure above as a floor rather than a quotation. What sets the number on the way out is unusually specific, and worth understanding before you enquire.
Olbia in August is a parking problem before it is a flying problem, and on a departure that problem has already happened. If the aircraft that brought you in could not stand on the ramp for the fortnight, it left empty and something has to come back for you - two extra sectors that sit in your price whether or not anyone describes them to you. That is the single biggest variable here and the first thing we establish when we quote it. There is a counterweight, and it is a real one: the same rule pushes empty aircraft off that ramp every day of the season, and they are going your way. After that the day of the week does most of the rest. Saturday is changeover across the Costa Smeralda and the departures cluster into a few hours of it, so a Friday or a Sunday is a different flight at a different price. Everything else - the crossing, the handling, the crew - is small by comparison. Tell us your dates and we will tell you what the aircraft has to do around your flight, because on this sector that is the quotation.
Two months carry this route. From the Sardinian end the question is not only which month you leave in but which day of the week, and knowing both is most of what you need in order to book it sensibly.
| Period | What happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| June | The season opens on the Costa Smeralda. Warm, uncrowded, and the ramp at Olbia still has room, so the aircraft that brought you can usually wait and take you back. | A week or two. The best value of the summer, in either direction. |
| July and August | The peak, and an extreme one - most of Olbia's business-aviation year happens in these weeks. brokers named Milan Linate to Olbia its busiest city pair of July 2025. | Four to six weeks, and fix the departure day early. Saturday is changeover and the hardest morning of the week to get off the island on. |
| September | The regatta season at Porto Cervo and the best sailing weather of the year. Traffic holds up into the middle of the month and then falls away quickly. | Two to three weeks. Once the ramp starts emptying after mid-month the return crossing becomes easy to place. |
| October to May | The coast closes. Olbia handles very little business aviation outside the season. | Short notice is realistic, if you need the crossing at all. |
brokers July 2025 top city pair: Private Jet Card Comparisons, 6 August 2025. Seasonality classification: routes_shortlist.csv, Diamond Executive Aero Services route research, 23 August 2026. Movement counts: EBAA 2023. Google search-suggestion evidence: "private jet olbia to nice", "private jet from olbia to nice", "private jet from sardinia to nice", measured 23 August 2026.
The airport is not the destination; the marina or the villa is.
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Nice to Malaga ›Tell us your dates and how many of you there are. Your dedicated flight advisor will come back with aircraft options and a firm price.
All published routes are listed on the route index. Also useful: the fleet, current empty legs, jet sharing.