Shaquille O'Neal's maintenance bill on $27,000,000 'Dunkman' private jet is leaving people stunned

Fans of Shaquille O'Neal were left stunned when they saw how much he paid to maintain his private jet.

When it comes to having a private jet, buying the thing is just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg.

If you've ever owned a car you'll be all too familiar with the raft of expenses - fuel, road tax, insurance, and of course, mechanics' bills.

Given that you can easily find yourself compelled to spend eye-watering sums just on a car, keeping a plane airborne so it won't catch fire and crash is a level of personal expense beyond the realm of us regular plebs.

In Shaq's case, buying the jet to begin with - despite his saying he wouldn't do it for years - cost a whopping $27 million.

This is the equivalent of the median lifetime earnings of just under 15.9 US citizens, with the median being around $1.7 million over someone's whole life.

And that's not including running the Bombardier Challenger 650 jet, which comes with a lot of costs.

Shaquille O'Neal paid $27 million for his jet (Marcin Golba/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The largest expense is, predictably, fuel to keep the plane going. And you can't just nip down to the garage for $40 worth of diesel to top it up, this has to be jet fuel.

For 200 hours of flight, this reportedly set the basketball star back some $517,668 according to Liberty Jet.

Next is staffing the jet, as unless you're Iron Maiden frontman and trained airline pilot Bruce Dickinson, you'll have to pay someone to fly it and act as cabin crew.

So crew costs for the plane came to $307,542 for those 200 hours.

Then you have the engine maintenance, which seems pretty important, and that comes in at $93,174.

A Bombardier Challenger 650 jet, the same model owned by Shaquille O'Neal (JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images)

Adding in other expenses involved in running a private jet such as insurance and hangar space and the total came to a whopping $1,351,204 for 200 hours, and $2,144,112 for 400 hours.

Shaq had previously said that he would not want to own a private jet, previously Jetset magazine: “No, I don’t think so. There’s too much maintenance."

He added: "If I own something, I like to know what is going on. I don’t want to get screwed in a bad deal. I’ve seen it happen to other guys.”

But in 2023, Shaq clearly changed his mind and bought the jet after previously renting out other private jets.

Shaq is not the only basketball player to own a private jet, with Michael Jordan owning one which set him back an eye-watering $61.5 million.