The Charter
Private Plane Miami to Iguana Island
A charter is not a ticket. Nobody sells you a seat and puts a stranger in the one beside it, because the aircraft itself is what you book. From there the whole shape of the day follows: the names on board, the hour it rolls, and which strip in the Exuma chain it stops on.
Iguana Island is uninhabited. It has one beach, white cliffs behind it, and no strip of any kind, so the wheels come down on Staniel Cay three miles north and a boat covers the rest.
Nothing about that is a compromise when the aircraft answers to you. A scheduled traveller reaches the middle Exumas through a hub and a wait. You reach them in one leg and a short run over the water.
Everything between the two ends belongs to us: the departure point in Miami, the aircraft and the crew, the clearance on arrival in the country and the travel documents the Bahamas asks for before you leave Florida. Your party brings passports and a bag, and arrives shortly before the boarding time rather than two hours ahead of it.
It is around 226 nautical miles of open water and cays, one of several small plane routes from Miami, and the same aircraft carries on through the rest of the Bahamas.
Plan Your Iguana Island Charter
How It Works
How a Private Plane to Iguana Island from Miami Actually Works
Six things change the moment one party holds the aircraft for the day, and not one of them is a feature of the aircraft.
Plan Your Iguana Island CharterThe Names
You write the passenger list and nobody adds a line to it
The people on board are the people you sent us. No seat map gets assigned around your group, nobody sits behind you listening, and there is no reason to turn up early to protect anything. The list also stays open: somebody joining late, somebody dropping out, a child who turns out to be coming. We refile and it is the same flight at the same hour.
The Hour
Departure is something you decide rather than something you find
A published service leaves when it was printed to leave. Yours leaves when you say, inside daylight and inside what the crew may legally fly.
That is what makes a single day in the middle Exumas work at all: the boat run to the beach happens in good light and you are back in Florida the same evening. If the morning drifts, the aircraft simply waits, because it has nowhere else it is meant to be.
The Ground
No terminal at either end, because neither end has one
You park in Florida, walk out to the aircraft and go, with the outbound filing already lodged from the departure point. Staniel Cay is a general aviation field, so the far end is a walk from the aircraft to the dock rather than a building to cross. Nothing your party carries has to go further than the door.
The Transfer
The transfer is set up with the aircraft, not once you are standing there
Iguana Island has no dock and no road, so the beach is reached by a small boat that runs up onto the sand and lets people wade the last step.
That leg is booked alongside the aircraft and timed to the landing rather than found once you are standing on the strip, which on a cay this quiet is the difference between a morning and a wait.
The Weather
Weather is the one thing a charter cannot make more flexible
Everything else here bends. Weather does not, and we would rather move a day than fly it poorly. You hear from us as early as we know, and the flight is rebooked rather than pushed through. Because the aircraft was held for your party alone, moving it is a conversation instead of a place in a queue for the next seat.
The Way Back
The return hour belongs to you the same way the outbound one does
On a published service the way home is an hour somebody else chose. Here it is the hour you name on the morning, and it can still move while your party is on the sand.
Lunch at the yacht club can run long and the boat can come back late, and the aircraft is still on the strip when you get there. Ask for ground transport on Staniel Cay with the flight and it waits too.
Departure Points
Departure Points for a Private Plane Charter from Miami to Iguana Island
The aircraft is booked for your party alone, so the departure point is yours to pick rather than something a timetable decides. These are the four we fly from around Miami. Select one to see exactly where it sits.
Miami Executive
Miami Executive Airport, TMB, Kendall
Kendall-Tamiami in the south west of the county, a general aviation field where the distance from the car to the aircraft is measured in steps. Nobody is waiting on a boarding call, because the only people on the flight are the ones who booked it. It is the shortest drive from the south and west of Miami-Dade.
Opa-locka Executive
Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, OPF
The executive airport north west of the city, where your group waits in a private terminal and walks out when it is ready. Most island days leave from here, and the same building clears the return into the United States. There is no check-in queue, so the morning is built around your day.
Miami International
Miami International Airport, MIA
A pickup rather than a base, for a party already off an airline flight that wants the island leg from the same airport. Arranged per flight and confirmed with the operator before it is quoted. It is the one departure point that costs you time, because a commercial field runs to its own order.
Fort Lauderdale Executive
Fort Lauderdale Executive, FXE
Fort Lauderdale Executive, chosen when the group is north of Miami and the drive south would eat the hour the flight saves. The return clears in its own building there, so a day need not end where it began. The aircraft positions to meet you.
How to Charter
How to Book Before Flying Private Plane from Miami to Iguana Island
Chartering an aircraft is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Iguana Island Charter- 01
Contact Us
Write to us on WhatsApp or by email. Send your dates, how many guests, where you are coming from and where you want to travel. Tell us the hour you would like to leave. On this route the boat run to the beach wants good light, so the morning is usually worth protecting.
- 02
Get Aircraft and Prices Back
We check what is free on your date and send back the aircraft that suit your party, with baggage and flight time for each. You are pricing the airframe rather than a headcount, so four people on a given aircraft cost what eight would.
- 03
Confirm and Pay
You pick the aircraft, and we set the pickup point and the landing site. Then everything around the flight. Catering on board, the boat across to the beach, a golf cart on Staniel Cay, ground transport at either end. Flowers if the day is a special one. You approve it, you pay, and your boarding time, departure point and everything included come back to you.
- 04
Just Arrive 30 Minutes Before Departure
You will have no terminal and no queue. Just make sure you are there 30 minutes before. Then you take off, land on the strip nearest your beach, and enjoy the day.
On the Island
Where a Private Plane Charter to Iguana Island from Miami Puts You Down
The wheels stop on Staniel Cay, in the middle of the Exuma chain, and from that moment nothing about the day is scheduled. There is no published return to work backwards from and no coach party to keep together, so what follows is a menu rather than an itinerary.
These are the things parties on this route ask for, in the order they ask for them.
Plan Your Iguana Island CharterThe Iguanas Walk Down to Meet the Boat
Why You Came
Iguana Island is one long beach facing west, with pale limestone cliffs standing behind it and nothing built on it at all. The rock iguanas live in the scrub above the sand and come down when a boat arrives, which is the whole of the attraction and quite enough.
Two house rules travel with the place and both are easy: no dog comes ashore, and nobody feeds an iguana from the hand.
Your captain will say the same thing on the way over. Because the aircraft is yours, the hour you stand here is the hour that suits the light rather than the hour a tour boat was sold for. Most parties take the beach early and the rest of the chain afterwards.
The Last Three Miles Are a Boat
How You Get ThereNothing lands on Iguana Island. The strip is on Staniel Cay, a little over three miles up the chain, and a small open boat covers the water between them. There is no dock at the far end either, so the bow runs up onto the sand and the last step is a shallow wade.
That leg is arranged with the flight rather than hunted down on arrival. Ask for it when you send your dates and it is tied to the landing time, waiting at the dock with the engine warm when your party walks off the strip. Ask for ground transport in the same message if you want wheels on Staniel Cay as well.
The Pigs Swim Out to the Bow
Ten Minutes Away
Big Major Cay is the most asked-for stop on this route and it is minutes from the same dock. The pigs wade out to meet an arriving boat and stand shoulder deep beside it, and that is the picture almost everybody came for.
It is also the clearest argument for having your own aircraft. Day boats work to a departure somebody else printed, so they arrive when every other day boat arrives. A charter sets its own morning, which is how a party ends up there before the water is crowded and still makes the beach afterwards.
Nurse Sharks Under the Compass Cay Dock
A Longer Run North
The nurse sharks gather in the shallows at the Compass Cay marina and people get into the water with them. It is further than the pigs and it is the stop most often cut when a day is running late.
On a charter it is rarely cut, because the aircraft is not the thing imposing the deadline. A late finish here costs a later departure and nothing else. Tell us at the enquiry that this one matters and the boat time is built around it rather than squeezed in behind the rest.
Thunderball Grotto Opens at Slack Water
A Question of Timing
The grotto is a hollow cay off Staniel Cay that you swim into, lit from above through holes in the roof. It is only comfortable around slack water, when the current through it drops, and that window moves through the day. This is where a private hour earns its money.
A fixed return flight either matches the tide or it does not. Yours is set after we look at the day, so the swim happens at the right moment and the flight home is written around it. Anything more particular than that is a custom request and we would rather hear it early.
The Aircraft on the Bottom at Norman's Cay
Worth a Detour
A smuggler's aeroplane went into shallow water off Norman's Cay decades ago and is still there, sitting in a few feet of clear sand so that most of it is visible from the surface. It is one of the better known things to look at in the northern Exumas.
Norman's Cay has a field of its own, so a party that wants the wreck properly can land there instead of boating up to it, see it, and continue south to the iguana beach on the same aircraft.
That is a routing question rather than an excursion, and it belongs in your first message to us. The Norman's Cay page covers the island on its own terms.
The Sandbars in Pipe Creek
Low Water Only
Pipe Creek is the maze of cuts and cays north of Staniel Cay, and at low water sandbars come up out of it that are dry enough to stand on and gone again a few hours later. Boats anchor on them and people get out.
A bar that exists for two hours is the one thing a printed timetable can never reach. Because your hour is a decision, the day can be built the other way round: the tide first, the departure second. A beach picnic set up on one of them is the version of this most parties end up asking for.
Two Cays Before the Flight Home
One Day, Not Two
Iguana Island is usually one stop of several rather than the whole trip, and an aircraft that belongs to you for the day can string those stops together in whatever order the tide and the light allow. Once your party is cleared into the country, every leg after it is domestic.
Staniel Cay, Exuma, Nassau and Andros all take the same aircraft, and none of them sends you back to a hub first. That is the shape of an island hopping day or a longer Bahamas day; a single cay and back is an Iguana Island day trip. The full list is on the Bahamas destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book a Private Plane Charter to Iguana Island from Miami?
Send the date and the number of guests. You get the aircraft that are free, what each one costs and the hour it can leave, and nothing is held until you say so.
Add-Ons
Private Plane to Iguana Island 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 Plane Charter Miami to Iguana Island: The Group, the Hour and the Exuma Cays
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: which group is aboard, who deals with the paperwork, which of the Exuma cays the wheels actually touch, and how late the hour can still move on a flight to the Bahamas.
Private Plane Miami to Iguana Island: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Iguana Island private plane
The crossing is not dead time between two airports. The cabin is yours for it, so what is below is part of the day rather than something to sit through. It is around 226 nautical miles of open water and cays, one of several small plane routes from Miami, and the same aircraft carries on through the rest of the Bahamas. On this route that weighs more than usual, because a party crossing to an uninhabited cay is almost always travelling for one shared reason: a family with small children, a crew joining a yacht in the Exumas, six friends who took one house between them on Staniel Cay. Which field that happens at is our decision on the day, not a fixed promise on a web page: Andros and North Eleuthera are the usual choices from Florida, and George Town works when the trip carries on south afterwards. The cabin belongs to your party and nobody else, so the crossing is yours to spend as you like. what travels with you is arranged before you board.
Private Plane to Iguana Island from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a private plane to Iguana Island
Nobody hands you a timetable on a charter. The day is built around the hour you name. You name the hour you want to lift off, the hour you want to be standing on Iguana Island and which water in the city suits your morning. The aircraft belongs to your party for the day, so all three are your decision rather than a departure somebody else set, and a change the week before is a message to us. Half an hour before the lift-off is the whole of the check-in. Your party walks from the car to the aircraft, the bags go on in front of you, and the list for that flight carries your names and nobody else's. Nothing about the morning waits on a stranger. When the aircraft is yours, the field it leaves from is a choice rather than a given. And the crossing is a reason in itself. The windows are deep and the aircraft crosses low, so there is room for everybody to sit and watch the water change instead of taking turns at one of them.
Private Plane Charter from Miami to Iguana Island: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Iguana Island crossing
A private plane from Miami to Iguana Island crosses an international border twice in a day. Entry into the Bahamas asks for a declaration filed from Florida, clearance at a port of entry on arrival and a US return filed before you leave, which is what sets where you may land coming home. Passports for everyone, children included, per the travel documents guidance. What may travel sits in the baggage guidance. That same filing sets where you land coming home: a return from the islands clears at None, so a day that began on the water finishes on a ramp and a departure moved by weather runs under the weather and delays policy. If the party changes before the flight, the crew refiles. A name added, a name dropped: that is a message to us rather than a problem for you.
Flying Private Plane from Miami to Iguana Island: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Iguana Island
A private private plane from Miami to Iguana Island is booked when the day is worth marking: a birthday, a proposal, a graduation, a weekend away with the people who matter. The flight is short enough that the occasion, not the travelling, is what the day is about. That is what a private plane from Miami to Iguana Island is for. A charter fits an occasion for the same reason it fits a family: the cabin belongs to one party, so the day is shaped around them instead of around a timetable set months ago by a stranger. Send the date, the number of guests and the hour you would like to leave. Some parties fly over for the day and are home the same evening. Others stay on and book the return for the day they want. Both are the same charter, and the whole group travels together on one booking. If there is something to celebrate, say so when you book: catering, a private chef, premium beverages and flowers travel with you. Everything is in place before you board in Miami.
Questions
Private Plane Miami to Iguana Island: Questions Answered
What does chartering a private plane to Iguana Island actually include?
The aircraft and the crew for your party, every border filing, the boat across from Staniel Cay and the ground arrangements you ask for at either end.
You are booking the airframe rather than seats on it, so the price covers the flight whether four people travel or eight. Catering, a golf cart on Staniel Cay and onward transport are added when you ask for them and come back priced with the aircraft.
Does the plane land on Iguana Island itself?
No. Iguana Island is uninhabited and has no strip of any kind, so the wheels come down on Staniel Cay about three miles north and a small boat covers the last of it.
The boat runs up onto the sand and you wade the final step, which is how everyone reaches this beach, including the day boats out of the yacht club. If you would rather touch down on the water beside the beach instead, that is a seaplane rather than a private plane, and it has its own page.
Can we choose our own departure time?
Yes, within daylight and within what the crew is allowed to fly. That is the main thing a charter buys you here. The hour is set when you confirm and can still be moved afterwards if the day changes, because the aircraft is not going anywhere else and there are no other passengers to inconvenience.
Most parties leave Miami in the morning so the boat run happens in good light, and come back in the afternoon or early evening. Tell us the hour you actually want rather than the one you assume is on offer.
Is anyone else on the private plane?
No. A charter carries the people you name and nobody else. There is no seat assignment, no second party sharing the cabin, and no risk of the flight leaving without part of your group because a connection did not hold. The list also stays open until shortly before the flight: a name added or dropped is a refiling on our side rather than a rebooking on yours.
Do we have to connect through Nassau to reach the middle Exumas?
No, and that is the step a charter removes. Scheduled travel into this part of the chain means a large airport, a wait, and something smaller onward. Your aircraft flies the crossing in one leg and lands on the field that suits your day, which for Iguana Island is normally Staniel Cay.
Black Point, Little Farmer's Cay and Norman's Cay take the same aircraft if the itinerary wants one of them instead, and George Town has the long runway if part of the group is arriving from further away.
Where does customs and immigration happen if Staniel Cay has no desk?
On the way. Staniel Cay has no customs facility, so we clear customs and immigration at an airport of entry first and then fly on to the strip. Andros and North Eleuthera are the usual choices coming out of Florida, and George Town works when the trip carries on south afterwards.
Which one it is depends on your date and your routing, and it is our decision rather than something you arrange. Your party either stays aboard or steps out for a few minutes.
Do I need a passport for Iguana Island?
Yes, for every passenger including children. The Bahamas is a different country and a private aircraft does not change that. We take the passport details once at the enquiry and file for both sides before departure. The travel documents page lists what each passenger hands over and by when.
How early do we need to be at the airport?
About thirty minutes. There is no terminal to cross and no queue to join, because both ends of this route are general aviation. You park, walk out to the aircraft and go. The outbound filing is already lodged from our side before you arrive, so there is nothing to hand in and nothing to print.
Can we see the pigs and the sharks on the same day?
Usually yes, and most parties do. Big Major Cay and Compass Cay are both short runs from Staniel Cay, so a single day can take in the pigs, the nurse sharks and the iguana beach if the boat time is planned with the flight rather than after it.
Send the whole wish list with your dates and it comes back as one day with the hours written down, not as three separate excursions.
What if the weather turns on the day?
The day moves. Weather is the one thing a charter does not make flexible, and we would rather move a flight than fly it badly. You are told as early as we know, and the aircraft is rebooked to a date that works for your party.
Because it was held for you and nobody else, moving it is a conversation rather than a place in a queue for the next available seat.
Is a private charter cheaper than scheduled flights for a group?
It depends on the size of the party and what the day is worth to you. The aircraft costs the same whether it is full or not, so the cost per person falls as the group grows, and a party of six or eight is usually where the comparison turns.
What a fare comparison never shows is the half day you get back at each end by not routing through a hub. Send the date and the headcount and you get real numbers rather than an estimate.
How do we start?
Send the date, the number of guests, where you are leaving from and the hour you would like. You get back the aircraft that are free, what each one costs, the boarding time and what is included, and nothing is held until you say so.
If the day has anything else in it, a boat booked for the afternoon or a table at the yacht club, say so at the same time and it comes back priced alongside the aircraft.
Can I bring a pet on a private plane 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 Plane to Iguana Island from Miami?
Send the date, the number of guests and the hour you would like to leave. You get the aircraft that are free, what each one costs and what is included, before anything is booked.
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