With the holidays approaching, many private flyers are turning to traditional charter to satisfy their travel needs. With no long term commitment and an abundance of capacity in the market, charter may offer an attractive alternative to fractional shares and jet card programs.
If you’re new to charter, your first concern should be to make sure that the flight will be safe and operated by a reputable charter company. A personal referral is always great, but with over one thousand charter operators in the United States, you may have to some due diligence. Here are a couple of tips that will help you guide you as you look to book your next flight:
- Review the operator’s five year safety accident/incident record.
- Require that the operator, the aircraft you’ll be chartering and the pilots all are certified by one of the established safety auditing firms like ARG/US or Wyvern.
- Make sure the aircraft has state of the art avionics and other safety equipment and is in full compliance with all FAA directives and maintenance requirements.
- Make sure the pilots have flown a significant number of hours in the particular model aircraft you’ll be chartering.
