Shohei Ohtani’s Private Jet: Why Baseball’s Biggest Star Owns None, and the Global 5000 He Was Never On

The most famous Shohei Ohtani private jet never carried Shohei Ohtani. On December 8, 2023, thousands of fans tracked a Bombardier Global 5000 from Southern California to Toronto, convinced he was aboard to sign with the Blue Jays.

He was not aboard. The jet belonged to Shark Tank investor Robert Herjavec, and the next day Ohtani announced a 10-year, $700 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The FAA aircraft register shows no airplane in Ohtani’s name today either.

This guide covers the aircraft that actually carry him: the Dodgers’ two-plane team charter setup, the Japan Airlines A350 painted with his image, and the Patriots’ Boeing 767 that flew the Dodgers home as champions. It also explains how the Toronto flight myth started.

Shohei Ohtani’s Private Jet Fleet

Ohtani owns no aircraft, so his “fleet” is the planes his team and his sponsor put him on. Here are the four aircraft most tied to his name, including the one he never boarded.

Dodgers Team Charters: Boeing 757 and Boeing 737-800Chartered from Delta (757) and United (737-800) · players and staff split across two planes

Reported setup · 2024-2025

ArrangementTeam charter, not ownership

StartedOctober 2024 postseason

Full-time2025 regular season

Players' planePlayers plus a few clubhouse staff

Second planeManager, coaches and staff

Travel partySometimes more than 100

Japan Airlines Airbus A350-900 "Dream Sho Jet"JA08XJ · special livery of Ohtani batting and pitching · JAL domestic trunk routes

Retired from livery June 2026

First flight in liverySept. 29, 2024 (JL503)

Last flight in liveryJune 10, 2026 (JL326)

RoutesHaneda to Sapporo, Fukuoka, Naha

Flights in liveryAbout 2,700

Passengers carriedAbout 900,000

Ohtani's roleJAL sponsor, not owner

Boeing 767-300 "AirKraft"New England Patriots aircraft · operated by Omni Air International

One flight · Oct. 31, 2024

OwnerNew England Patriots

OperatorOmni Air International

Dodgers flightNewark to Los Angeles

Departed5:23 a.m., Oct. 31, 2024

Landed8:20 a.m. Pacific

OccasionFlight home after the World Series win

Bombardier Global 5000N616RH (2023) · Robert Herjavec's jet · the flight fans tracked to Toronto

Never Ohtani's

Tracked flightDec. 8, 2023

RouteSanta Ana (SNA) to Toronto (YYZ)

On boardRobert Herjavec and family

Max cruiseMach 0.89

Passengers8 to 19 by layout

Engines2x Rolls-Royce BR710A2-20

The Origin Story: How a Rumor Became the “Ohtani Jet”

Ohtani’s aviation story is mostly other people’s planes. The timeline runs from a flight he never took to a jetliner with his face on it.

How the Dodgers Actually Fly Ohtani

Like other MLB players, Ohtani travels to road games on the team charter. What made the Dodgers different in 2025 was that they used two of them on every road trip, a setup the Los Angeles Times described in May 2025.

The players rode one plane, with a handful of clubhouse staff. Manager Dave Roberts, the coaches and the rest of the traveling party rode the second. The club chartered a Boeing 757 from Delta and a Boeing 737-800 from United.

Senior director of travel Scott Akasaki called it “reimagining team travel.” Roberts said the change “was driven by” the players.

The point was rest. Because the players left right after a getaway-day game, they landed the same night and got a full off day before the rest of the party arrives. “It gives us actually a whole day off,” Freddie Freeman told the Times.

The second plane was also insurance. The Times reported that the team suffered several long delays from charter mechanical problems in 2024, and the club acknowledged that a second jet adds cost and environmental impact.

The Dodgers are not the only club that thinks hard about the plane. Our guide to sports teams with private jets covers the handful of franchises that own their aircraft outright.

The Japan Airlines “Dream Sho Jet”

The closest thing Ohtani has had to a signature aircraft is a widebody airliner. Japan Airlines, one of his individual sponsors, painted its Airbus A350-900 JA08XJ with two images of him on the rear fuselage, one batting and one pitching.

JAL called it the “DREAM SHO JET.” The design put a red semicircle behind him, and the left and right sides differ, a nod to his two-way game.

It was the symbol of JAL’s DREAM MILES PASS project, which gives young people 892,440 km (about 554,500 miles) of free travel to chase their goals. JAL said that figure matches the distance Ohtani had traveled since entering Hanamaki Higashi High School, roughly 22 trips around the Earth.

Over about 20 months, JAL said, the jet flew about 2,700 flights and carried about 900,000 people on its domestic trunk routes from Tokyo Haneda to Sapporo, Fukuoka and Naha.

The Global 5000 Ohtani Was Never On

On the morning of December 8, 2023, Ohtani’s free agency was the biggest story in baseball, and the Toronto Blue Jays were one of the finalists. When a private jet filed from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, near his Southern California home, to Toronto Pearson, fans decided it had to be him.

BlogTO reported that more than 4,000 people were watching the flight on Flightradar24 after it took off at 9:40 a.m. Pacific time. Daily Hive found that the FAA listed the aircraft, N616RH, as a Bombardier Global 5000 registered to a corporation.

Then MLB Network’s Jon Morosi posted that Ohtani was “en route to Toronto,” and the plane-tracking frenzy took off. CBC sent a crew to Pearson to meet the jet.

Who was actually aboard

The jet landed in Toronto with Robert Herjavec, the Canadian businessman and Shark Tank investor, and his family. “All joking aside, I’m not @shoheiohtani and he was not on my plane today!” he wrote on Instagram, adding that his 5-year-old “WAS on the plane and throws a mean pitch.”

The “RH” in the tail number fit its owner. The next day, Ohtani announced that he was signing with the Dodgers.

The jet behind the rumor

The Global 5000 is a shortened derivative of Bombardier’s Global Express. SKYbrary lists a range of 4,800 nautical miles at Mach 0.85, about 1,200 nautical miles less than the Global Express, and two Rolls-Royce BR710A2-20 turbofans.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which builds its wing and center fuselage, gives a top cruise speed of Mach 0.89 and a cabin for eight to 19 passengers depending on the layout. That is plenty for a trip from Orange County to Toronto, and the reason so many fans thought it was a free agent’s ride.

Shohei Ohtani’s Most Famous Flights

Champions on the Patriots’ plane

After the Dodgers beat the Yankees in the 2024 World Series, the team flew home on the “AirKraft,” one of two Boeing 767-300 jets owned by the New England Patriots and named for owner Robert Kraft.

The Boston Globe reported that it left Newark at 5:23 a.m. on October 31, 2024, and landed at Los Angeles International at 8:20 a.m. Pacific. Omni Air International operates the jets and flies them for other charter customers when the Patriots do not need them.

The Seoul trip photo

Ohtani revealed in February 2024 that he had married but did not name his wife. In March, as the Dodgers left for the Seoul Series, the team’s account posted a photo of the couple boarding the trip, and outlets identified her as Mamiko Tanaka, a Japanese basketball player who played for Fujitsu Red Wave.

The wall at Haneda

For the March 2025 Tokyo Series, the Dodgers’ charter flew in from Phoenix. The Associated Press reported that Ohtani was one of the first players off, but hundreds of waiting fans never saw him: a temporary wall about 130 feet (40 m) long screened the arrival, and the players left by another route.

How Ohtani Compares With Other Sports Stars

Ohtani is an outlier among the highest-paid athletes. Our list of athletes with private jets is full of stars who own one, while the man who signed a then-record $700 million contract has no tail number at all.

Flight tracking explains most of the confusion. Fans who follow celebrity jets, a habit that famously annoyed Elon Musk, are only as good as the registration behind the dot on the map.

For Ohtani, the answer to “what jet does he fly” is whatever the Dodgers book. His most famous airplane wore his face for about 20 months and carried 900,000 strangers, and his most tracked jet belonged to someone else.