The Private Jet Charter Checklist: 12 Questions to Ask Before You Pay

A checklist only exists because something is hard to see.

Nobody publishes a checklist for booking a hotel room. You know what you are buying. Private jet charter is different, because between you and the aircraft there are usually two or three parties, and the document you are handed at the end is a single number with a signature line under it. The checklist is the workaround. It is how a buyer reconstructs, question by question, what the paperwork left out.

So here is the list. Not the polite version. The twelve things worth knowing before money moves, what a straight answer actually sounds like, and what a soft one is telling you.

1. Who is the legal operator of this flight?

Not the brand on the quote. The company that holds the air operator certificate, employs the crew and carries the insurance. You want the legal entity name, the certificate it operates under, and the country that issued it.

A straight answer is a name you can look up in about ninety seconds. A soft answer sounds like "one of our vetted partners" or "a Part 135 operator in our network". That is not an answer, it is a category.

2. What is the tail number?

The registration of the specific aircraft, before you pay, not after. A tail number turns everything else on this list from a promise into something checkable. Age, configuration, ownership, maintenance history and the operator it sits with are all attached to it.

There are legitimate reasons a tail can change late, and we will come back to that at question eleven. But there is no legitimate reason for you not to know which aircraft you are being quoted on today.

3. What is the operator charging, and what are you charging?

This is the question the industry is built to avoid, and it is worth being precise about why.

In the standard model the operator quotes a price, and a commission of 5% to 30% goes on top before the number reaches you. It is not concealed exactly. It is simply that the two figures arrive fused, and once they are fused there is no way to separate them from the outside. Ask for a breakdown and you get a breakdown of the total, itemised beautifully, with the margin distributed invisibly across the lines. An itemised quote and a transparent quote are not the same document.

The only version of this question that gets you anywhere is the direct one. What is the operator's own price, and what is your fee on top of it, as two separate numbers.

4. Where is the aircraft now, and is positioning in this price?

An aircraft sitting at your departure airport is a cheaper trip than an identical aircraft two hours away that has to fly in empty to collect you. That empty leg is called positioning, it is a genuine operating cost, and somebody is paying for it.

Ask where the aircraft is starting from and where it goes afterwards. If it has to reposition at both ends, you may be paying for four flights to take two.

5. What is not in this number?

The usual absentees: de-icing in winter, crew overnight and duty costs on multi-day trips, catering beyond a standard tray, wifi by the megabyte, peak day surcharges, landing and handling at the specific FBO rather than the airport generally, wait time if you run late, and parking, which at some airports in high season is now a serious line in its own right.

You are not looking for a quote with no variables. Weather and timing are not knowable in advance. You are looking for a provider who names the variables before you sign, rather than after.

6. What is the operator's current safety standing, and where do I check it?

ARGUS, Wyvern and IS-BAO are the credentials that come up most often. Hearing the name is not the point. Two things matter: whether the standing is current, and whether you are pointed to somewhere it can be independently confirmed.

Ratings lapse. Operators change. A credential quoted from memory in a sales conversation is worth less than a registry entry you can look at yourself.

7. Are both pilots current on type, and are they legal for the whole trip?

Crew duty limits are the constraint that most often breaks a schedule, and almost nobody asks about them at booking. A crew that has run out of legal duty hours cannot fly you home, regardless of how much you are willing to pay in that moment.

If your itinerary has a long day, an early start after a late finish, or a time zone change in the middle, ask whether it is duty legal as scheduled, and what happens to the plan if it is not.

8. How old is the aircraft, and when was the cabin last refurbished?

Age on its own is a weak signal. A well maintained twenty year old airframe on a rigorous programme is a better aircraft than a neglected eight year old one. The useful questions are when the interior was last done, what maintenance programme it sits on, and whether this particular aircraft is representative of that operator's standard.

If the photographs you were sent are stock images of the type rather than that tail, it is entirely reasonable to ask for photographs of the actual cabin.

9. Is this the right airport?

The airport you named is not always the airport that serves you best. Runway length limits which aircraft can take the trip at full fuel. Some airports require slots or prior permission. Some cannot guarantee parking in season. Some are twenty minutes closer to where you are actually going.

A provider who has thought about your trip will raise the airport question before you do. A provider who simply prices what you asked for has not looked.

10. What are the cancellation and change terms, in days?

Not "flexible". Days and percentages. At what point does a change cost nothing, at what point does it cost something, and at what point is the money gone. Then the same question for a schedule shift rather than a cancellation, because those are often treated very differently.

11. What happens if this aircraft goes technical the night before?

This is the most revealing question on the list, because it is the one that cannot be answered with a policy.

Aircraft do go technical. Weather closes airports. It is not a rare event and no provider can promise it will not happen. What separates one answer from another is whether the person opposite you already knows what the alternative is. Do they know which suitable aircraft are within reach of your dates, right now, or will they start looking at the point it goes wrong?

Ask what the substitution terms are, who absorbs the difference if the replacement costs more, and how quickly you will be told.

12. Who do I call at two in the morning, and will it be the same person?

Charter is sold by one person and very often delivered by another, or by a rota. If your departure moves at midnight, you want to reach someone who already knows your trip rather than explain it from the beginning to a duty desk.

What we put in writing before you ask

Five of the twelve should never have to be asked, so with us they are not.

Every quote we send names the legal operator and the tail number. It shows the operator's own price as the operator wrote it, and our advisory fee as a separate line beneath it. It states where the aircraft is positioning from. It lists what is excluded and what could move. You get all of that before you decide anything, because a decision made without it is not really a decision.

On the rest, our answers are the same every time. We check safety standing at the time of booking rather than quoting it from memory. We confirm the trip is duty legal as scheduled before we tell you it is confirmed. We raise the airport question ourselves. And on the one that matters most, we already know what the second aircraft would be, because knowing it in advance is the entire job.

When something does go wrong, it is ours to sort out. We are reachable, in person, and with enough notice most of it is resolved before you are ever aware there was a decision to be made.

The shorter version

If you only ask three, ask these. Who is the legal operator and what is the tail number. What is the operator's price and what is your fee, separately. And what is the plan if this aircraft is unavailable the night before.

The answers to those three tell you almost everything about how the rest of the trip will go.