Private Jet Airports in Northern California
Choosing an airfield here
What drives the choice in this area: where the traffic goes, where you can clear, and what you can land.
Overview
42 airfields serve Northern California. Charles M Schulz / Sonoma County (KSTS) handles the most business aviation traffic, with 25% of the area's business jet movements , followed by Redding Regional and Truckee-Tahoe . The area stretches from the Sacramento Valley into southern Oregon and out to the Pacific coast, covering airfields in California, Oregon, and Nevada. It mixes valley fields near sea level with mountain airports above 5,000 feet, so density altitude and terrain shape planning far more than distance alone. No field in the area currently offers onsite customs, so international arrivals route through a clearance point elsewhere first. Summer brings the highest demand of the year, driven partly by traffic into higher-elevation fields near Lake Tahoe.
Comparison
Ten of the 42 airfields serving Northern California handle 90% of the area's business jet movements. Distance is measured from the area center, and runway length is the longest paved surface on the field.
Headline figures cover public airports only. Military and private fields stay in the list below but are excluded from the counts.
Source: FAA Form 5010 and CBP list of ports of entry.
All airfields
All 42 airfields serving Northern California, grouped by distance from the area center. Each tier carries its own scale in nautical miles, and every mark is one airfield.
Distance is measured from the area center, not from another airfield.
Source: Skystar calculation from official coordinates.
Seasonality
Business jet traffic across Northern California peaks in July and is lowest in February. Six months run above the yearly average.
Source: FAA TFMSC, 47,828 business jet movements across the area, 2025.
Skystar in Northern California
We arrange catering, fuel and trip support across the area. Supplier prices reach you unchanged; our coordination fee sits on its own line.
The same trip, priced two ways.
Citation Longitude, four passengers, one night in Northern California.
At cost.
What the supplier invoices us is what your quote reads.
One line, fixed.
It does not move with the size of the trip.
At cost.
Passed on at the exact amount the processor took.
Market practice figures are industry averages, not a specific competitor.
Frequently asked questions
How spread out are the airfields across Northern California?
Northern California spans a wide stretch of the state, from Redding and Chico in the Sacramento Valley up through the Klamath Falls and Medford areas in southern Oregon, and out to the redwood coast around Eureka and Crescent City. Field spacing reflects that reach: Redding Regional (KRDD) and Rogue Valley International/Medford (KMFR) sit 115 NM apart, while Redding Regional (KRDD) and California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County (KACV) are 87 NM apart. A dispatcher weighing an alternate in this area is often looking at a genuine cross-valley or cross-mountain repositioning leg, not a short hop.
Which airport in Northern California sits at the highest elevation, and what does that mean for planning?
Truckee-Tahoe (KTRK), near Truckee, CA, sits at 5,904 feet, the highest elevation among public-use fields in the Northern California area. Its paved runway reaches 7,001 feet, but density altitude in summer months can cut into usable performance well beyond what the runway number alone suggests. Operators planning into or out of Truckee-Tahoe (KTRK) during the July peak, when area-wide business jet movements climb to 5,629, should weigh takeoff weight and temperature together rather than relying on runway length as the limiting factor.
Where is the longest runway in Northern California, and how does it compare to the busiest field?
The longest public-use runway in the Northern California area is at Crater Lake/Klamath Regional (KLMT) in Klamath Falls, OR, at 10,302 feet. That field logs 2,584 annual business jet movements, well below Charles M Schulz/Sonoma County (KSTS) in Santa Rosa, CA, which leads the area with 12,127. The runway length at Crater Lake/Klamath Regional (KLMT) makes it a candidate for heavier aircraft or contingency planning, independent of how much day-to-day traffic it carries.
Does Northern California have any airports with customs clearance?
No airport in the Northern California area currently shows onsite customs capability. Operators arriving from outside the United States into this area need to route their customs clearance through a field outside the region before continuing to a Northern California destination such as Charles M Schulz/Sonoma County (KSTS) or Redding Regional (KRDD). This is worth building into trip planning early, since it adds a leg or a stop that isn't otherwise obvious from looking at the area's own airport list.
How does traffic in Northern California change between winter and summer?
Business jet movements in the Northern California area swing from a low of 3,110 in February to a peak of 5,629 in July, an 81% increase across the season. Six months of the year run above the 3,986 average monthly figure, concentrated from May through October. For operators booking summer trips into fields like Truckee-Tahoe (KTRK) or Charles M Schulz/Sonoma County (KSTS), this seasonal climb is worth factoring into ramp and parking assumptions, since July alone accounts for the highest single-month demand of the year.