The Flight
Private Jet Miami to Big Major Cay
Big Major Cay is the cay with the swimming pigs, a beach and low scrub deep in the Exuma Cays with no settlement, no road, no pier and no runway. Everything with a roof stands on Staniel Cay, a little over a mile away. The jet lands at Norman's Cay further up the chain, and the last stretch is a short connecting flight south and a few minutes in a boat.
A day out here has three links, and the first one decides whether the other two still run in good light. Around 225 nautical miles of water lie between the city and the pigs, and the Stream builds cloud over the first part of it from midday. A jet goes over that, which is why the hour on Norman's Cay is the hour that was agreed.
Everything between Miami and the beach is ours: the departure airport, the aircraft and crew, the connecting flight and the boat, both border filings and the travel documents. Your party brings passports and a bag. The boat to the pigs is booked with the flight. Norman's Cay carries its own customs desk, so clearance happens where the jet stops. Big Major Cay is also reached by small plane, by seaplane, by private plane and by helicopter, and each is a different day.
Plan Your Big Major Cay Charter
Miami to Big Major Cay Private Jet
How a Private Jet Big Major Cay from Miami Flight Actually Works
A Miami to Big Major Cay jet charter involves more than the time in the air above the Gulf Stream. Here is what every flight includes, from your first message to the moment the boat noses onto the beach at Big Major Cay.
Plan Your Big Major Cay CharterDistance and Flight Level
Most of the Water Crossed in One Climb
Big Major Cay lies around 225 nautical miles from the city, roughly 259 statute, almost all of it open water. From the middle of the day the Stream stacks cloud along the first stretch, which is what keeps lighter aircraft waiting on the ramp.
A jet climbs through it and holds one altitude, so the long part of the trip is over before the afternoon weather has properly started.
The Whole Aircraft
One Cabin, One Party, One Departure Hour
The cabin belongs to your party for the day and leaves at the hour you name, not one a schedule picked. Seating, bags and what is poured on board are agreed at the enquiry rather than sorted out at the ramp. A slow start to the morning moves the departure, it does not cost you the aircraft.
The Runway and the Last Leg
Norman's Cay Asphalt, Then a Short Hop South
No jet lands on Big Major Cay, and the strip on Staniel Cay next door is too short for one, so the aircraft puts down at Norman's Cay: 4,701 feet of asphalt and an airport of entry with customs on the same field.
From there a connecting flight by small plane or seaplane covers about 33 nautical miles south to Staniel Cay, and a boat runs the last 1.28 miles in five to ten minutes.
Both Borders
Cleared Where the Jet Stops, Nothing After
Because Norman's Cay is itself a port of entry, the formalities and the landing happen in one place, and the hop south and the boat are domestic. The passport details are taken once, at the enquiry, and the travel documents are filed from our side for both directions.
On Board and Ashore
Catering, a Boat and Lunch at the Yacht Club
A chef, a cake for an anniversary, a table at the yacht club on Staniel Cay: what the day needs is ordered with the aircraft rather than chased once you are on the beach. The same goes for the boat that runs you between the pigs, the grotto and lunch. Tell us what the day is for and it is built around the flight.
How Long the Day Runs
One Long Day or a Week in the Exumas
The jet keeps the flying short, so one long day with the pigs and the grotto is a real shape of the trip. A week on a yacht or in a house on Staniel Cay is the other, with the rest of the Exumas reachable by boat from the same anchorage. The aircraft stays yours for as long as the itinerary runs.
Departure Points
Departure Points for a Private Jet from Miami to Big Major Cay
Miami has no single business airport, it has four and the right one is the one closest to where your day starts. Select one to see exactly where it sits.
Opa-locka Executive
Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, OPF
The executive airport north west of the city and the usual Miami departure for a private jet, with private terminal handling on both ends. It is also where a return from the islands clears US customs.
Miami International
Miami International Airport, MIA
The right one when the party is already at MIA, arriving on a commercial flight or connecting to one and the onward leg should leave from the same airport instead of crossing the city first. Arranged per flight rather than held, so it is confirmed with the operator before it is quoted.
Miami Executive
Miami Executive Airport, TMB, Kendall
Kendall-Tamiami, in the south west of the county and the shortest ground leg for Coral Gables, Pinecrest and the south of Miami-Dade. A general aviation field, so the walk from the car to the aircraft is short.
Fort Lauderdale Executive
Fort Lauderdale Executive, FXE
Fort Lauderdale Executive, thirty miles up the coast and the field a Broward or north Miami departure is quoted from. Its federal inspection station is where a US return from the islands is cleared when the day begins and ends in Broward.
How to Charter
How to Book a Private Jet Charter Miami to Big Major Cay
Chartering an aircraft takes four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Big Major Cay Charter- 01
Contact Us
Write to us on WhatsApp or by email. Send your dates, how many guests, which airport suits your morning and where you want to travel. Tell us the hour you would like to leave.
- 02
Get Aircraft and Prices Back
We look at what is free on your date and come back with the types that suit the party, each with its seating, its baggage allowance and its flight time. The price is for the airframe, so four passengers and eight on the same aircraft cost the same.
- 03
Confirm and Pay
You choose the aircraft and we fix the departure field. Then the rest of the day gets attached: catering aboard, the connecting flight that meets the jet at Norman's Cay, the boat out to the pigs, a table at the yacht club, a dock pickup for the return.
Flowers if there is something to mark. Once you approve and pay, the boarding time, the field and the full inclusion list come back.
- 04
Just Arrive 30 Minutes Before Departure
There is no terminal queue waiting for you. Be there half an hour ahead, walk out to the aircraft, and the day begins as you climb away over the bay.
In the Exumas
Where a Private Jet Charter from Miami to Big Major Cay Puts You Down
The jet is where a Big Major Cay day really begins. A flight high over the Gulf Stream, and then the pigs paddling out to the boat, the grotto from the Bond film, sharks at Compass Cay and iguanas one cay south. Below is what a day out there can look like.
Plan Your Big Major Cay CharterThe Pigs and the Beach
Most Asked For
This is the reason the trip happens. The pigs are not kept and not fenced: they live on the beach, they hear a boat coming and they wade out to meet it, and an hour of that is what most parties cross the Gulf Stream for. How they arrived is genuinely unknown. The story told most often has sailors leaving them ashore and never coming back; other versions have them swimming off a wreck or brought over from the next island. No record settles it. Two things are worth knowing before the date. They are wild animals, so the boat operators set the distance rather than the guests. And bring no food of your own: the operators carry what is right for them.
Staniel Cay, a Mile Away
Minutes by BoatBig Major Cay has no settlement, so everything with a roof stands on Staniel Cay, a little over a mile away: the yacht club, two small groceries and the fuel dock. The connecting flight from Norman's Cay lands there, and the boat to the pigs leaves from there. That closeness is what makes the day work. Lunch ashore, a boat for the afternoon and the pigs are the same short run apart, so one afternoon holds all three without hurrying. Neither Staniel Cay nor Big Major Cay has a customs desk, which is why the jet clears at Norman's Cay first. Staniel Cay has its own page, Miami to Staniel Cay by helicopter.
The Nurse Sharks at Compass Cay
Shallow Water
A few minutes north, nurse sharks gather at the marina dock on Compass Cay in water shallow enough to stand in. After the pigs it is the thing parties ask about most, so a boat afternoon usually takes both. They are bottom feeders with no interest in people, which is why this stop works with children along. Nobody has to get in: the sharks come to the dock itself, so a guest who stays dry sees what the swimmer sees. Stingrays and turtles turn up in the same clear shallows.
Thunderball Grotto
Snorkel Depth
The grotto is a limestone cave in the water off Staniel Cay, with openings in the roof that let the light fall into it. It takes its name from the 1965 James Bond film shot there, and it lies minutes from the anchorage. The swim in is short, and the tide sets the hour rather than the schedule: slack water at low tide is when the entrance is easy. It is one of the few parts of the day decided by the sea instead of the aircraft, so name it when you send the date.
The Iguanas on Bitter Guana Cay
Protected Species
A short run south, the beach on Bitter Guana Cay belongs to Northern Bahamian rock iguanas, an endangered species found nowhere else. They come down onto the sand when a boat pulls in. It is a protected population, so the rules are stricter than at the pigs and the operators keep to them. For parties who came for the wildlife rather than the photographs, this is often the stop they remember.
The Wreck at Norman's Cay
Six Feet of Water
The best known wreck in these cays lies at Norman's Cay, the island where the jet lands: a Curtiss C-46 that came down in the shallows in the smuggling years and is lying there still. A boat from the field takes it in before the connecting flight south, if the day is built that way. A second, smaller wreck sits in about six feet of water within half a mile of the yacht club on Staniel Cay, shallow enough that snorkellers and divers look at the same thing from different depths.
Pipe Creek and the Sandbars
Low Water Only
North of the pigs the chain breaks up into Pipe Creek, a run of small cays and shallow channels where the bank dries into open sand at low water. There is nothing on it and nothing around it. That is where a beach picnic goes and where the rays come in shin deep. Add water toys if the afternoon belongs on the water, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you. Low water decides the hour here, and the sandbars sit on the same line north as the shark dock, so a boat afternoon runs as one loop rather than three separate trips.
Onward Down the Chain
Same Aircraft
A private jet charter from Miami to Big Major Cay also works as one leg rather than the whole trip. The same jet carries on from Norman's Cay to Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros, Grand Bahama or further down the Exumas. That is what turns one cay into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route, and island logistics is the version where the load matters more than the party. The full island guide sits on the Big Major Cay destination page, the packaged version is the Big Major Cay getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page. This page stays on the crossing itself.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book a Private Jet Miami to Big Major Cay?
Send the date and the number of guests. You get what is free, what it costs and the hour it can leave, and nothing is held until you say so.
Add-Ons
Private Jet to Big Major Cay Add-Ons
Tell us which of these you want when you send your dates and they come back priced with the aircraft.
In Detail
Private Jet from Miami to Big Major Cay: The Gulf Stream Below You, Norman's Cay and the Short Hop South
Everything above is the day itself. Below it sits the reasoning: what the Stream does to an afternoon and why this aircraft is indifferent to it, how late a departure can still be moved, who handles the border at Norman's Cay, and what a date worth marking looks like on a flight to the Bahamas.
Private Jet Big Major Cay from Miami: Flying High and Fast Over the Gulf Stream
Over the Gulf Stream on a private jet from Miami to Big Major Cay
Around 225 nautical miles of open water sit between the city and the pigs, and how you cross them decides what is left of the day. From late morning the Stream lifts cloud and squalls along that line. A boat waits it out, a light aircraft flies beneath it or stays on the ramp, and either way the afternoon goes with it. A jet is clear of all of it at altitude, so the same weather that holds back a Florida departure costs this trip nothing. Out here that counts twice, because the beach is not where the aircraft stops. Norman's Cay takes the wheels, a short connecting flight takes you south to Staniel Cay, and a few minutes in a boat put you in front of the pigs. Arrive late at the first link and the last one runs in fading light. Every hour the crossing does not eat is an hour on the beach, and the cabin belongs to your party alone on jets in the fleet of this size. Other private jet routes from Miami fly the same way.
Private Jet to Miami from Big Major Cay: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a private jet to Big Major Cay
A charter comes without a timetable. The day takes its shape from an hour you choose yourself. Three things are yours to set: when the wheels leave Florida, when you want to be in the water with the pigs, and which field suits your morning. None of it follows somebody else's schedule, and moving it the week before takes one message. If the drive is shorter heading north, the same day runs out of Fort Lauderdale. Thirty minutes before the wheels is the whole check-in. You walk from the car to the steps, the bags go aboard where you can watch them, and the list carries your names and nobody else's. The connecting flight and the boat are tied to the jet rather than to a published departure, so landing an hour later at Norman's Cay strands nobody. The return works the same way: holding it back is a message and not a rebooking, and that is what lets a day on the beach end when it is actually finished.
Private Jet Charter Miami to Big Major Cay: The Crew Handles Both Borders
Passports are all your party carries on a Big Major Cay crossing
A day with the pigs means leaving one country and entering another, twice. Unfiled, that is where the hours go. Three filings cover it: out of Florida, in at a port of entry, home again. The crew makes all three. Norman's Cay is itself a port of entry, so the formalities and the landing share one stop and the hop south to Staniel Cay is domestic. Big Major Cay has no counter of its own and no runway, which is why the route runs by way of Norman's Cay. Passports for everyone, children included, per the travel documents guidance, and what may travel sits in the baggage guidance. Where you land coming home comes with the quote, and delays run under the weather and delays policy. If the party changes, the crew refiles: a name added or dropped is a message.
Private Jet Charter from Miami to Big Major Cay: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a long weekend or something to celebrate on Big Major Cay
A private jet from Miami to Big Major Cay is booked when the day is worth marking: a birthday, a proposal, a graduation, a weekend away with the people who matter. A beach where the pigs swim out to meet the boat is a rare thing to reach inside a morning. Plenty fly over for the day and sleep in Florida that night. Others take a yacht or a house on Staniel Cay for the week and set the return whenever suits, with the grotto and the shark dock at Compass Cay on the way. It is one charter either way, and the entire group sits on a single booking. If there is something to celebrate, say so when you book: catering, a private chef, premium beverages and flowers travel with you. A date that has to look like something is also a date that cannot afford to move, and on a cay you reach by a connecting flight and a boat that is the other half of what this aircraft buys you. That is what a Private Jet Charter from Miami to Big Major Cay is for.
Questions
Private Jet Miami to Big Major Cay: Questions Answered
How long is the private jet flight from Miami to Big Major Cay?
Big Major Cay lies around 225 nautical miles from the city, roughly 259 statute, and the jet flies the long part of that to Norman's Cay.
We put the block time in the quote instead of on a web page, because it depends on the aircraft and the field you leave from. The connecting flight south and the boat add a short stretch at the end, and both are arranged before you leave Florida.
Can a private jet land on Big Major Cay?
It cannot. The cay is a beach, scrub and the pigs, with no runway, road or pier, and the strip on Staniel Cay next door is too short for a jet.
The aircraft therefore lands at Norman's Cay, 4,701 feet of asphalt further up the Exumas, and a connecting flight and a boat finish the journey. You book one thing, not three, and all of it is settled in Florida.
How do we get from Norman's Cay to the pigs?
A connecting flight by small plane or seaplane covers about 33 nautical miles south to Staniel Cay, then a boat runs the last 1.28 miles to the beach in five to ten minutes. Both are held for your aircraft rather than run to a schedule, so a late landing changes nothing for you.
Why take a jet if it cannot land there anyway?
Because the long water before the Exumas is the part that goes wrong. The Stream builds cloud and squalls along that line from the middle of the day, and on a crossing this long that is what pushes trips into tomorrow.
A jet holds one altitude above the layer and passes over it. Norman's Cay helps too: the border desk is on the field, so the connecting flight leaves without a second stop. Two more links follow the jet, and buying certainty about the first one is the point.
Is there anything to do besides the pigs?
A good deal within a short boat ride. Thunderball Grotto, the limestone cave from the 1965 Bond film, lies off Staniel Cay. Nurse sharks gather at the dock on Compass Cay a few minutes north, rock iguanas live on Bitter Guana Cay to the south, and the sandbars of Pipe Creek open at low water. Tell us which of those the day is built around.
Which airport does the jet leave from in Miami?
Miami has no single business airport, it has several, and the right one is the shortest ground leg from where your morning starts. The executive field north west of the city is the usual departure and is also where a return from the islands clears US customs.
Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach are possible too and have their own pages. Tell us where your party is actually staying and the airport is picked around that rather than the other way round.
Can we choose our own departure time?
Within daylight and the crew's duty limits, the hour is yours. On this route that matters more than usual, because a connecting flight and a boat follow the jet.
You fix the time at booking and can still move it afterwards: the aircraft has nowhere else to be and carries nobody else. The connection waiting at Norman's Cay is tied to your arrival rather than to a printed schedule, so it shifts when you do.
Is anyone else on the jet?
Never. You name the passengers and that is the whole manifest. No seat numbers, no strangers across the aisle, no chance of the aircraft pushing back while part of your group is still parking. Names can also be added or removed close to the day, which costs us a refiling and costs you a message.
Do I need a passport for Big Major Cay?
Everyone needs one, children included. The Bahamas is another country whatever you arrive in. We collect the details once when you enquire and file both directions before departure. Since the clearance happens on landing at Norman's Cay, the hop south and the boat count as domestic travel. The travel documents page sets out what each passenger provides and by when.
Can we do it as a day trip?
It can be done, and it is a full day: the jet, a short connecting flight and a boat each way. Because the return hour stays open while you are still on the beach, you are not counting backwards from a last departure the way scheduled travel forces you to.
Parties who would rather not rush take a yacht or a house on Staniel Cay and fly home on a day of their choosing.
What if the weather turns on the day?
It interferes less here than with anything else that flies this water, which is the argument for the aircraft. The jet works above the layer that keeps others down.
If a day does have to shift, you hear it as soon as we do, and since the aircraft was held for your party it is a conversation rather than a scramble for the next free seat. The connecting flight and the boat are the weather-sensitive links, so on a rough afternoon that is what gets rescheduled, not the jet.
Can we feed the pigs?
Bring no food of your own. The pigs are wild animals rather than an attraction with a fence, and the wrong food is the one way visitors have harmed them. The boat operators carry what is right and set the distance, and we arrange the boat with the flight so that part is already in hand when you land.
How many people fit?
That follows from the aircraft and from what the group is bringing, so it belongs in the quote and not ahead of it. Give us the headcount and the bags when you enquire and you will see what is available on your date, what each type takes and what each one costs. Since the price is for the airframe, the figure per head drops as the party grows.
How do we start?
Send the date, the headcount, the field that suits your morning and the hour you have in mind. Say as well whether the day is built around the pigs alone or the grotto and Compass Cay too, since that decides how long the boat is kept.
Back comes the availability, the price, the boarding time and the full list of what is included. Nothing is held until you confirm.
Can I bring a pet on a private jet charter?
Yes, pets travel in the cabin with you. The one thing we ask is that you tell us at the enquiry, with the type of animal and its weight, so the seating and the load plan are right from the start.
Next Step
Ready to Book a Private Jet Charter from Miami to Big Major Cay?
Send the date, the number of guests and the hour you would like to leave. You get what is free, what it costs and what is included, before anything is booked.
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