Operator safety ratings, explained

Who is legally responsible for your flight

In the United States, commercial charter is flown under 14 CFR Part 135. The certificate holder — the operator — is the party the FAA holds responsible for maintenance, crew training, duty limits and operational control. Outside the US the equivalent is an Air Operator Certificate issued by the national authority.

Brokers and referral sites, including this one, hold no such certificate. Book a Private Jet is not an air carrier. When you book, ask which certificated operator is flying the aircraft; you are entitled to know, and a straight answer is itself a signal.

Part 135 versus Part 91

Part 135 is commercial charter, with the stricter regime: tighter duty and rest limits, mandated training programmes, higher maintenance requirements, and drug-and-alcohol testing.

Part 91 covers private and corporate flying and does not permit holding out to the public for hire. Occasionally an aircraft is offered on a Part 91 basis in ways that push at the boundary of that rule. If a flight is being sold to you commercially, it should be a Part 135 flight.

The three audits you will see quoted

ARGUS

ARGUS International rates operators from Gold through Gold Plus to Platinum. The ratings draw on historical safety data, pilot background checks, and — at the higher tiers — an on-site audit. Platinum additionally requires a functioning safety management system. ARGUS also tracks aircraft and crew records, which is why a broker can tell you an individual trip is “ARGUS checked”.

Wyvern

Wyvern’s Wingman standard audits the operator against a published set of criteria and verifies crew experience against the specific aircraft. Wyvern also produces a per-flight report confirming that the particular aircraft and the particular two pilots assigned to your trip meet the standard — a narrower and more useful check than a company-level badge.

IS-BAO

The International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations is a registration, not a rating, run by the International Business Aviation Council. It is built around a safety management system and is audited in three progressive stages. Stage 3 indicates the safety culture is demonstrably sustained over time rather than assembled for an audit.

What these ratings do not tell you

• They are point-in-time audits. A rating earned last year describes the operator as it was audited, not as it is today.
• Company-level ratings say nothing about the specific tail number or the two people in the cockpit. Only a per-flight report does that.
• They are voluntary and paid for by the operator. A small operator with an excellent record may hold none of them simply because of the cost.
• No audit predicts weather, and none removes the pressure that causes most charter incidents: the temptation to fly a trip that should have been moved.

What we do and do not verify

We do not audit operators and we do not hold safety data of our own. We will not tell you an operator is safe, because we are not in a position to know. What we will do is tell you which certificated operator is being proposed, so you can ask for their rating and their insurance certificate before you sign anything.

Anyone claiming a specific safety rating for a flight should be able to produce the underlying report. If they cannot, treat the claim as marketing.