Most celebrities on this list own a business jet. Steven Spielberg owns a business jet and an airliner, and the second one has been in his hangar since 2006.
The Steven Spielberg private jet fleet is two aircraft: a Gulfstream G650ER registered N900KS, and a Boeing 737-700 converted to Boeing Business Jet configuration registered N800KS. Both tail numbers end in the same two letters, and that is not a coincidence.
This article covers both aircraft in full: serial numbers, ownership entities, engines, range, what each one actually gets used for, and the flight-tracking data that turned a director who calls himself terrified of global warming into a recurring name on celebrity emissions lists.
Quick facts about Steven Spielberg’s private jets
Steven Spielberg’s Complete Private Jet Fleet
Two aircraft, twenty years apart in design philosophy, both still active. The Gulfstream is the one he flies most; the Boeing is the one that carries a film unit.
The split between them is straightforward. The G650ER flew 69 legs in 2024 against the Boeing’s 47, and it does the point-to-point work that a director’s calendar demands.
The Boeing exists for the flights where cabin volume matters more than speed or efficiency. It is a full airliner fuselage with a VIP interior, which is a category of aircraft almost nobody in Hollywood owns outright.
The Origin Story: From a Used Airliner to the Gulfstream Flagship
Spielberg’s aviation history runs backwards compared to most celebrity owners. He bought the big aircraft first and the fast one thirteen years later.
June 2000
The Boeing rolls out. Boeing 737-7BC serial 30782, line number 586, makes its first flight on June 1 wearing the manufacturer test registration N1786B, then goes to business jet operator KevinAir LLC that October.
May 2006
Spielberg buys the BBJ. The aircraft is re-registered to AEJ Services LLC of Los Angeles, with an FAA certificate issue date of May 10 and physical handover that August. It becomes N800KS.
2015
A future flagship leaves Savannah. Gulfstream builds G650ER serial 6163, the extended-range version of the aircraft that had already reset the top of the business jet market.
2018
The quote that follows him around. Spielberg tells an interviewer he is terrified of global warming and calls it a scientific reality rather than a political trick, a line that resurfaces every time his jets are tracked.
2019
The Gulfstream arrives. Spielberg acquires serial 6163 and registers it N900KS, matching the Boeing’s suffix. Reported value at the time is around $70 million.
2022
Sixth on the emissions list. A widely shared study of celebrity flight tracking places Spielberg sixth for private jet emissions over the first half of the year, with the second-longest average flight time of anyone ranked.
September 2025
France to Fargo to Los Angeles. The Boeing flies from France to Fargo, North Dakota, then continues to Los Angeles on the same day, drawing another round of coverage.
The 2006 purchase is the more revealing of the two. Buying a six-year-old 737 in VIP configuration was a decision about carrying a production team, not about arriving faster.
Inside the Flagship: The Gulfstream G650ER
The Gulfstream G650ER is the extended-range variant of the aircraft that redefined the top of the business jet market when it entered service in 2012. It carries 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) more fuel than the standard G650 and adds 500 nautical miles of range.
Spielberg’s example is finished in off-white with strawberry pearl and titanium stripes, a scheme restrained enough that most people photographing it at Van Nuys would not know whose it is.
With 7,500 NM of range it will fly Los Angeles to Sydney or New York to Hong Kong without stopping. That puts it near the top of the longest-range private jets in service.
Performance
Cabin
Ownership
Two Rolls-Royce BR725 turbofans produce 16,900 pounds of thrust each, which is what lets the G650ER hold Mach 0.90 as a normal long-range cruise rather than a sprint setting.
The cabin runs 46 feet 10 inches long, 8 feet 6 inches wide, and 6 feet 5 inches high, with a forward galley, a crew rest area, two lavatories, and a baggage bay reachable in flight. Gulfstream states the pressurization system replaces the cabin air completely every two to three minutes.
Who else flies this exact aircraft
The G650ER is the default flagship of the billionaire class. Jeff Bezos owns two, Elon Musk flies one, and Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates are both on the owner list. Spielberg buying one in 2019 was less a statement than an entry fee.
Ownership on paper is less simple than the tail number suggests. FAA records have listed Gulf Group Enterprises LLC of Los Angeles as the registrant, with more recent entries showing TVPX Aircraft Solutions Inc as trustee, a standard structure that keeps the beneficial owner off the public registry.
Day-to-day operation is handled by Clay Lacy Aviation, the Van Nuys management company that flies a large share of the Los Angeles celebrity fleet.
The Boeing 737 That Has Been His for Twenty Years
N800KS is the more unusual aircraft, and by some distance. It is a Boeing Business Jet, meaning a 737-700 airframe fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks and a custom VIP interior instead of 149 airline seats.
The airframe was built in 2000 and delivered to KevinAir LLC that October. Spielberg’s entity, AEJ Services LLC, took it on in 2006 and has held it ever since.
Two CFM56-7B turbofans give it a range of roughly 6,000 nautical miles depending on the auxiliary tank fit, which is short of the Gulfstream but more than enough for a transatlantic crossing with a full load.
Why a director buys an airliner
A BBJ is not bought for speed. A 737 cabin is roughly three times the floor area of a G650ER, which means a full crew, a cast, editors, and equipment can move as one unit and keep working in the air. For a filmmaker running a production company, the aircraft is closer to a mobile office than a status object.
The trade-off is fuel. In 2024 the Boeing flew 47 legs and burned about 102,583 gallons, against 85,571 gallons for the Gulfstream’s 69 legs, so it consumed more fuel across fewer and shorter total flight hours.
That is the arithmetic behind most of the criticism aimed at Spielberg. An older 737 is one of the least efficient ways to move a small group of people.
What the KS in Both Tail Numbers Means
N800KS and N900KS share a suffix because they belong to the same household. The letters are widely read as Kate and Steven: Spielberg has been married to actress Kate Capshaw since 1991.
It is a quiet piece of personalization compared to the rest of this series. There is no custom livery, no nickname painted on the nose, and no logo on the tail.
The registration entities carry the same restraint. AEJ Services and Gulf Group Enterprises are deliberately forgettable names, and the Gulfstream sits behind a trustee on top of that.
The Emissions Problem Spielberg Cannot Shake
In 2018 Spielberg said he was terrified of global warming, calling it “a scientific reality” and “not a political trick.” That quote is now attached to nearly every story about his aircraft.
The first big flare-up came in 2022. Flight-tracking data showed 16 trips between June 23 and July 19, covering nearly 17,000 miles (27,400 km) and burning an estimated $116,159 of jet fuel in under a month.
A widely circulated study published later that year ranked him sixth among celebrities for private jet emissions over the first half of 2022, at an estimated 4,465 tonnes of CO2 equivalent across 61 flights.
Source: Yard, celebrity private jet CO2e estimates, January 1 to July 19, 2022. Figures include a 2.7x radiative forcing multiplier.
Those numbers deserve a caveat that most coverage skipped. The study estimated emissions from flight time using a single assumed aircraft type for everyone ranked, so it flattens the difference between a 737 and a light jet.
The detail that made it stick
Spielberg had the second-longest average flight time of anyone in the 2022 ranking at roughly one hour and 47 minutes, which normally reads as efficient use of an aircraft. What undercut it were the outliers: an 18-minute hop from Amsterdam to Rotterdam and a 25-minute flight from Gabreski Airport in New York to New Jersey, both distances a car covers comfortably.
Aircraft-specific figures for 2024 are lower and better grounded. Estimates based on the actual airframes put the Gulfstream at about 819 tonnes of CO2 and the Boeing at about 982 tonnes for the year.
Combined, that is still roughly 1,800 tonnes from one household’s aircraft in a single year, against a global per-person average in the low single digits.
Spielberg’s representatives have not responded publicly to the tracking stories, which is the standard playbook. Others have taken different routes: Taylor Swift sold one of her two aircraft and pursued the account posting her flight data, while Lewis Hamilton sold his jet outright.
Steven Spielberg’s Most Notable Private Jet Moments
France to Fargo to Los Angeles in one day
On September 4, 2025, tracking data showed the Boeing flying from France to Fargo, North Dakota, then continuing to Los Angeles the same day, with fuel for the two legs estimated at around $61,502.
The Fargo stop is almost certainly a fuel or crew stop rather than a destination, but the routing gave the story its hook and it spread widely on social media.
The 18-minute Amsterdam to Rotterdam flight
The shortest flight logged against Spielberg in the 2022 dataset covered about 35 miles (56 km) between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The same trip takes roughly an hour by train.
Short repositioning legs are routine in business aviation and often carry no passengers at all, but that nuance rarely survives contact with a viral post.
A Paris round trip over Christmas
In December 2024 the Gulfstream flew Teterboro to Paris Le Bourget, then Paris back to Westhampton Beach on Long Island three days later, each leg around seven hours and roughly 3,200 gallons of fuel.
That pairing is the G650ER doing exactly what it was designed for, and it explains why the Gulfstream rather than the Boeing gets the long international work.
Twenty years without a fleet change
The quietest notable fact about this fleet is how little it has moved. Spielberg has kept the same 737 since 2006 and has added exactly one aircraft in that time.
How Steven Spielberg’s Fleet Compares
Two aircraft is mid-pack for this series. What sets Spielberg apart is the type mix: almost nobody profiled here owns both a top-tier Gulfstream and a converted airliner.
| Owner | Flagship aircraft | Range | Aircraft owned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steven Spielberg | Gulfstream G650ER | 7,500 NM | 2 |
| Jeff Bezos | Gulfstream G650ER | 7,500 NM | 2 |
| Oprah Winfrey | Gulfstream G650 | 7,000 NM | 1 |
| Drake | Boeing 767-200 | ~6,590 NM | 1 |
| Tyler Perry | Bombardier Global 7500 | 7,700 NM | 4 |
The closest comparison in the series is Drake’s Boeing 767, which is a bigger airframe on the same logic: buy a widebody airliner and use the cabin as the point.
Spielberg does not fly either aircraft himself. Unlike the celebrity pilots in this series such as John Travolta and Harrison Ford, he has never publicly held a pilot certificate, and both jets are flown by professional crews.
Against the wider field of Hollywood celebrities with private jets, his fleet reads as a working tool set rather than a collection. It is also, unavoidably, one of the more carbon-intensive setups in the group.
FAQ
Sources and references used for research and fact-checking.
- Simple Flying, A Look At Steven Spielberg's Gulfstream G650
- Simple Flying, Inside The Luxurious World Of Steven Spielberg's Private Jet
- Simple Flying, Which Two Aircraft Does Steven Spielberg Fly?
- Yard, Just Plane Wrong: Celebs with the Worst Private Jet CO2 Emissions
- Newsweek, Steven Spielberg's Spending on Private-Jet Fuel Divides Fans
- FlightAware / FAA registry, N800KS Aircraft Registration
- FlightAware / FAA registry, N900KS Aircraft Registration
- The Cool Down, Steven Spielberg sparks backlash as details of recent trip surface
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About the Author
Tim is the owner and lead editor of AeroCorner since 2019, overseeing aviation content covering aircraft, airlines, airports, and the broader aviation industry. Through years of researching, writing, editing, and publishing aviation-focused content, he has developed extensive practical knowledge of commercial aviation and air travel. Based in Asia and a frequent traveler himself, Tim also brings firsthand passenger experience to AeroCorner’s coverage. Outside of publishing, he has also explored aviation firsthand through hands-on flight training in New Zealand.