Purpose This paper aims to assure the selection of the most suitable very light business aircraft which is preferred by the passengers based on effectiveness and aesthetic comfort. The proposed approach to determine the light business jet aircraft would provide long-range, less travel time, cozy seating arrangements, on-board lavatory facility, other aesthetic ambiance (audio systems, light systems and temperature-noise control) and appliances at reasonable flight cost. Design/methodology/approach The selection of a light business jet is obtained through multi-criteria decision-making based on the speed limit ranges from 0.57 to 0.70 Mach number and the distance traveled up to 3,000 km with the best aesthetic comfort level. To validate the approach, case studies of five aircrafts such as Honda Jet HA 420, Cessna Citation jet M2, Embraer Phenom 100, Eclipse 550 and Cessna Citation Mustang are performed. To obtain the best suitable business jet, criteria importance through intercriteria correlation (CRITIC) and technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is used to determine the rankings of listed aircraft. Findings The study concludes that the Cessna Citation jet M2 is chosen as the best Very Light Jet (VLJ) on the basis of speed, range, weight, cost, aesthetic and comfort. Based on the sensitivity, mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and symmetric mean absolute percentage error analysis (sMAPE), the most and least sensitive criteria for a business jet came out to be cost and speed, respectively. Originality/value A real case study for several parameters of five different jets such as Honda Jet HA 420, Cessna Citation jet M2, Embraer Phenom 100, Eclipse 550 and Cessna Citation Mustang are shown in this paper. Based on the case study numerical values are assigned with speed, range, weight, cost, aesthetic and comfort which are applied with CRITIC and TOPSIS to obtain the most suitable business jet among the five mentioned jets which are rarely found in the literature.