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While Lockheed Martin likes to advertise that its F-35 family aircraft have surprisingly low flyaway costs (base purchase price), flyaway costs are only one part of the cost of maintaining a fighter jet capability. The F-35A can have a lower flyaway cost than fighter jets like the F-15EX and Rafale, but its operating costs tend to be higher, and it requires extensive specialized support infrastructure.
Even so, it was designed to be affordable enough for US allies to operate and for the US Air Force to purchase it in large numbers. The US Air Force has a program of record for 1,763 F-35As, while the Marine Corps’ program is for 420 aircraft and the Navy is for 273 examples.
The F-22 Raptor is only operated by the United States Air Force. The final copy of the F-22 was delivered in 2012, and around 185 examples remain in inventory (of which around 145 are combat-coded). Let’s examine the cost per flight hour of the USAF’s two fifth-generation fighter jets.
2025’s Helpful CBO Report
According to a June 2025 Congressional Budget Office report analyzing 2023 data, the cost of operating an F-22 per hour is significantly higher than that of other aircraft, while the F-35A is similar to some fourth-generation fighter jets. The report notes that “data about the operating and support costs of Air Force aircraft are for the fleet as a whole.“
Due to this, costs were not available for individual aircraft, and so the report was not able to present cost data by aircraft age. In an effort to standardize comparisons, CBO divided the data by the number of aircraft and by the number of hours each fleet flew in each year. The data that CBO analyzed ran through 2023, and it is unclear how the costs have changed since then through 2026.
There is no published data for F-22 and F-35 costs per flight hour for 2026 yet. As a baseline, it may be reasonable to add another 10% in costs due to inflation. The US inflation index shows prices have inflated by 9.9% between 2023 and 2026, although the real-world rates for military aircraft could be different.
It should be noted that 2026 saw Operation Epic Fury against Iran. That campaign saw F-35s used extensively in combat and saw squadrons flown to and from the Middle East. 2026’s F-35 fleet flight hours may have been significantly affected, while the cost per flight hour may also have spiked due to intensive usage.
The Costs Of Operating F-35As Is Similar To F-15s
The CBO report states that “in recent years, operating and support costs per F-35A aircraft have been similar to costs of F-15Es, even though the F-15E fleet is much older than the F-35A fleet.” Operating and support costs of F-35s include recurring costs of operating the aircraft (like fuel and maintenance) as well as the costs of associated military personnel.
These include depot-level maintenance but exclude aircraft procurement costs and research and development costs. The report found that the F-35A’s operating and support costs approached $3.2 billion. This was much larger than the total costs of the F-35B and F-35C as the fleet size is much larger.
Cost per flight hour | Per 2025 CBO report (2023 numbers) | Per 2023 Aviation Week report |
|---|---|---|
F-35A | Approx. $45,000 | $46,282 |
F-22 | Approx. $80,000 | Not listed |
F-15 | Approx. $40,000 (F-15E) | $34,318 (F-15EX) |
F-16 | Approx. $35,000 (F-16C/D) | $25,682 (F-16 Block 70) |
Of the three variants, the F-35C had the highest costs per airframe. The costs of all three variants have fallen since 2015, when the F-35 initially entered operational service. Notably, while the F-35A has not been meeting the Air Force’s availability goal, its availability rates have actually exceeded those of other fourth-generation fighters in recent years, as well as the F-22.
There is nuance in the data. Some headlines give the impression that the F-35 has a terrible readiness rate, while in fact, it is one of the fighter jets with the highest readiness rates. With that being said, it is also a new jet and expectations are that it should have a higher readiness rate than aging jets.
How Many F-35As & F-22s Fly Annually?
On average, the Air Force flies its fighter jets between 150 and 200 hours in a given year. These rates have tended to fall as aircraft have aged, although the F-35A is now at the top of the list, flying around 200 hours annually. While this sounds like good news for the F-35A, it is tempered by the fact that it is also a young fleet. Adjusting for age, use of the F-35A has been considerably lower than the use of fourth-generation fighter planes of the same age.
It’s also worth noting that its usage is similar to that of F-22s starting when each of these aircraft reached five years old. Today, the annual usage of F-22s is somewhat lower, at closer to 150 hours, placing it between the F-15E and F-16C/D. The lowest category was the aging fleet of F-15C/Ds, which are now getting around 80 hours of flying a year, down from their peak in the 1990s of over 250 hours.
Modern fighter jets are typically flown around 200 hours a year, and this is around what is required to keep their pilots proficient. The number of hours fighter jets fly is one of the ways to assess the effectiveness of an air force. Air forces that have many fighter jets in inventory may not be able to afford to actually fly them and train their pilots very often.
The F-22 Is The Most Expensive Per Flight Hour
Stealth F-22s with their maintenance-intensive Radar Absorbent Materials have consistently had greater operating and support costs per flight hour than other aircraft. This is made worse by their limited production run, requiring a huge supply chain and maintenance pipeline to exist to support a relatively small and out-of-production fleet.
Each F-22 costs around $13 million to support each year, although this is down from a peak in 2019 when it cost over $15 million per airframe. Per hour, the F-22 is considerably more expensive to operate. In 2019, the cost per flight hour rose above $100,000, although it has fallen to a more typical roughly $80,000 per flight hour.
In 2023, the F-35A cost around $8 million annually, almost the same as the F-15Es and F-15C/Ds. The light/medium-weight F-16 has been consistently around $5 million annually for the decade measured. Per flight hour, the F-35A has fallen to around $45,000, which was around the same as the F-15E.
Interestingly, the aging and legacy F-15C/D’s cost per flight hour has recently risen above the F-35A. Again, the F-16 Fighting Falcon has consistently shown the lowest flight hour costs. The flight hour costs of the F-35 remain somewhat consistent with a 2022 GAO report using 2020 numbers. That report stated for the F-35 family, “$41,986 Total costs per flying hour -2.3% change from 2019.”
Avoiding Apples & Oranges
It can be argued that roughly $45,000 per flight hour is reasonable for a high-end fifth-generation fighter jet. Some commentators online may compare the F-35A’s costs to lower-end and lighter-weight fighters like the F-16 Fighting Falcon or the Saab Gripen. However, this is an inappropriate comparison, as they are different classes of fighter jets built for different missions.
It should be stressed that the F-35’s cost per flight hour is essentially ‘all costs included.’ Some misguided comparisons will compare this comprehensive cost per flight hour with selected costs for other aircraft. For example, it has been claimed that the Saab Gripen E has just $8,000-$10,000 per flight hour.
A 2023 investigation from Aviation Week found that this excluded $12,200 per hour for maintenance and that its total cost per flight hour was closer to $22,175. At the same time, Aviation Week put the F-35A’s costs similar to the CBO report at $46,282. Similar to comparing a F-35A to a Gripen, it would be inappropriate to compare the F-35A and F-22’s costs per flight hour to the B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Lancer, and B-2 Spirit bombers.
With that being said, incidentally, the 2020 costs per flight hour for the bomber types were $88,354, $173,014, and $150,700, respectively. Adjusted for inflation, this would be around $114,000, $223,000, and $193,000 in 2026.
Comparison With Other Fighter Jets
According to Aviation Week, the F-35A is the most expensive fighter jet on the market, but then again, it is the only fighter jet in its category. It makes little sense to compare an F-35A one-for-one with another fighter jet. The typical cost per flight hour for fourth-generation fighter jets is between $20,000 and $26,000 for lower-end fighters.
The F-16 Block 70 is estimated at around $25,682 per hour, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet at $25,733, and the Gripen E/F at around $22,174. Europe’s heavier and more capable Dassault Rafales and Eurofighter Typhoons are $31,238 and $28,965 per flight hour, respectively, while Aviation Week put the heavy F-15EX’s hourly costs at $34,318.
Aviation Week does not have an estimate for the F-22, but as stated, the CBO report finds the Raptors’ per-hour costs to be around $80,000. The F-22 Raptor is out of production and was not built to be an affordable fighter. There is essentially no appropriate Western fighter jet to compare with the Raptor.
Whereas other fighter jets have evolved to be multirole fighters, with Dassault even advertising its Rafale as ‘omnirole,’ the Raptor remains an air-dominance fighter jet. The F-22 has become a multirole fighter (it can carry JDAMs for land attack), but it remains a highly specialized, tip-of-the-spear fighter.
