Private Jets Flood Sun Valley for Annual Allen & Co. Conference

Sun Valley, Idaho, is preparing for a surge of private-jet traffic as the annual Allen & Co. conference begins Tuesday. Airport officials expect between 300 and 350 aircraft to arrive each day, far exceeding the airport’s normal volume.

"While the airport experiences a significant increase in activity, the coordination and procedures that have been developed over the years make the operation a well-oil​ed machine," said Tim Burke, director of Sun Valley Friedman Memorial Airport. He added that the field can hold about 100 to 125 business jets before reaching full capacity, after which arriving planes must relocate to nearby airports for parking.

The resort town, home to fewer than 1,800 permanent residents, has already seen several jets land, many operated by charter and fractional-ownership services such as NetJets, Flexjet and Vista, which are favored for privacy.

Attendees this year include prominent figures from the technology and media sectors, such as Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos, former Apple CEO Tim Cook, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch of Fox, and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg. AI is expected to dominate discussions, with past participants including Google’s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.

Media-industry leaders are also slated to attend, including Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters. The off-the-record nature of the summit, which encourages informal talks on golf courses and hiking trails, has historically facilitated major deals such as Disney’s purchase of ABC and Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal.

Organized by boutique investment firm Allen & Company, the gathering has grown from a media-focused meeting more than four decades ago to a broader corporate summit drawing hundreds of high-profile participants.