Picture wiring $250,000 for private flights, then watching the company stop flying the very next day. That is what one customer says happened with ONEflight, and the federal lawsuits piling up against the Colorado jet charter broker paint an ugly picture. The ONEflight lawsuits allege something troubling happened to customer money.
Here’s the short version. ONEflight International, based in Englewood near Denver, posted a notice on its website on Sept. 16 saying it was pausing all flights for 30 days “or until further notice.” Customers who had prepaid for jet cards and charters have been trying to get their money back ever since.
What ONEflight said about the pause
The company’s wording matters. In that notice, ONEflight said it was pausing all flight activity “while we conduct a comprehensive evaluation of our current operations and status.” It did not say it was shutting down. Local outlet 9NEWS says the business has ceased operations, but I found no bankruptcy filing as of today.
That 30-day window ran out around Oct. 16. I found no public update on whether flights resumed or the company closed for good. We have asked for comment and will update this story if the company responds. Until then, the ONEflight pause remains the central fact in every filing.
How much money the ONEflight lawsuits put at stake
The headline number is more than $150 million in prepaid customer funds. Handle it with care. That figure is an estimate from Forbes contributor Doug Gollan, who tracks the private aviation industry, and it reflects money exposed, not money confirmed lost. Forbes also reports that the company did not hold customer funds in escrow.
The losses claimed in court so far are smaller, though still painful. As of about Oct. 20, 9NEWS counted 10 federal lawsuits alleging customers are out a combined $6.2 million. Some of the filings argue the total could eventually reach $150 million. All of them name ONEflight and its founder and CEO, Ferren Rajput.
Jet card deposits start at $100,000, so these are not impulse buys. One Florida couple is suing to recover more than $815,000. Another suit alleges a family’s non-refundable deposits totaled $637,500, with $597,750 still unused when flights stopped.
We also have a separate report on the PGA Tour sponsorship and the fraud suits.
The timing is what has customers furious
The most explosive claims are about the final days before the pause. One suit says a Las Vegas couple wired $95,000 on Sept. 11 and, days later, received an offer for a $200,000 membership upgrade. Another, from a customer named Robert Milam, alleges he wired $250,000 the day before the pause.
The first lawsuit, filed Sept. 22 by an Illinois company, claims ONEflight kept more than $223,000 and asked for another $250,000 a week before halting flights.
A California plaintiff goes further. His suit alleges ONEflight used customer money to pay earlier customers and to fund marketing and sponsorships, including the PGA Tour and McLaren F1. One filing used language “consistent with the operation of a Ponzi scheme,” as Inc. reported.
To be clear, those are allegations in lawsuits, not findings by a court. Nobody has proven any of it, and no court has found ONEflight liable for anything. Executive vice president Mark Dismuke and other sales executives are also named in several of the ONEflight suits.
Why BAJit lawsuits hit so many people hard
You may have seen the ads. ONEflight ran TV spots under the BAJit brand featuring celebrities including Robert Herjavec and John Elway, and Kevin O’Leary was a company ambassador. It was also the title sponsor of the PGA Tour’s Myrtle Beach Classic.
In January, the company said it had $232 million in 2025 revenue, up 90% year over year. That was the company’s own number, and it is not audited. Revenue also isn’t cash in the bank, since a broker has to pay the operators who fly the planes. One charter operator told Forbes the company owed it $250,000 for a recent flight.
ONEflight is a broker, not an airline. It sells prepaid jet cards and charter flights and uses third-party operators to do the flying, so customers weren’t just trusting a brand. They were trusting a company to hold their money until they used the flights. Jet charter broker lawsuits like these tend to turn on exactly that question.
It also fits a wider pattern, which we covered in why elite experiences keep getting more expensive.
The lesson for anyone who flies private, or wants to
Here’s the thing. If a bankruptcy comes, prepaid jet card customers would typically become unsecured creditors, standing in line behind banks and other lenders. That means pennies on the dollar, if anything. Forbes points to earlier private-jet failures, including JetSuite, Jet It, AeroVanti, Zetta Jet, Imagine Air and Verijet.
The rule is simple: the more cash you prepay, the more you are lending to the company. Ask whether your funds sit in escrow, what happens to your balance if flights stop, and whether a famous face in an ad changes any of that. It doesn’t.
Watch the District of Colorado docket next. The count of lawsuits went from three to ten in about three weeks, and nobody has said yet what comes after the pause. So what does?
