Much about private jet travel trumps the commercial airline experience, and it’s easy to leave behind the noisy airports, long security lines and crowded overhead bins commercial flying for the convenience of private aviation. Of course, one thing you don’t want to give up when you fly privately is safety. While all flights in the United States are subject to regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the truth is that charter operations receive scant attention from the agency compared to commercial aviation.

Private jet and charter flights fall under the safety umbrella of Federal Aviation Regulation Part 135. While Part 135 does require additional training, different equipment maintenance standards and extra checks and balances compared to recreational aviation, these checks still fall short compared to what the FAA requires from commercial airlines. In turn, two independent safety evaluators have stepped in with their own ratings systems for evaluating private flights, looking at everything from pilot training to the more bureaucratic checks of flying, including whether the correct certificates are on file with the FAA before a flight takes off. Before you step on to your next charter flight, here’s what you need to know about the safety of that choice.

Who is evaluating flight safety?

Aviation Research Group/U.S. (ARG/US) and Wyvern provide third-party, independent audits of charter operators and flights. ARG/US was founded more than a decade ago, by the former president of NetJets. It started as a consulting company that focused on collecting industry data on business aviation and grew into safety auditing by 2001, when a major aviation auditing firm was purchased by a charter broker making an industry need for impartial audits apparent. According to Joseph Moeggenberg, president of ARG/US, the company follows the safety standard set by the Department of Defense, which is required to audit any airline or charter company that flies government employees or troops. “To this day,” said Moeggenberg, “our safety audit is still very close to those standards.”

Wyvern Consulting Limited was started in the early 1990s as the first safety auditing company in the aviation industry. Initially, it published the Wyvern Report, a list of charter operators that it recommended to corporate flight departments based on the results of safety audits. Two years ago, CharterX, an online marketplace for air charter buyers and sellers, purchased Wyvern and developed the Pilot & Aircraft Safety Survey (PASS) program. Since its inception, Wyvern has conducted over 1,700 audits of charter company operations and maintenance practices.

What do safety ratings mean?

ARG/US

ARG/US awards ratings of Silver, Gold, Gold + and Platinum to charter and fractional operators. Operators who do not pass receive a rating of DNQ, or Does Not Qualify. The ratings come from ARG/US’s CHEQ system which rates an operator’s safety history in comparison to other like-sized operators. It looks at the number of safety incidents an operator has experienced compared to the median number of incidents for operators of similar size. Operators can earn a Silver or Gold rating simply by submitting data on their pilots and equipment to ARG/US, but the higher level ratings require an onsite inspection. Operators are required to submit their information every 60 days, or their ARG/US rating will be pulled. “Some operators update us daily, or even hourly,” explains Kathleen Tyler, director of sales and marketing at ARG/US.

ARG/US audits focus on best practices, not compliance to FAA rules. For example, to award a Platinum rating, ARG/US mandates that all pilots should attend simulator training yearly, yet this training is not regulated or required by the FAA. The FAA does not require certain safety management systems, such as an emergency response plan; a top ARG/US rating, however, does.

In addition to evaluating the safety records of charter operators, ARG/US now certifies charter brokers as well, an important step as fliers are faced with a growing number of flight broker services. Charter brokers that receive an ARG/US certification only book trips on flight operators holding ARG/US ratings of Gold or higher.

While the CHEQ rating system evaluates a charter operator’s safety record as a whole, ARG/US’s TripCHEQ rating system evaluates the safety of the planes themselves, as well as the crew and charter operator for a specific flight. Subscriptions to these ratings are available to the public, and range from $1,800 per year for entry-level, infrequent reports to $2,500 per month for more specialized and frequently circulated reports. Charter brokers who are ARG/US certified must execute a TripCHEQ before every flight as well. Charter broker Jets.com was the first broker to be awarded the new ARG/US certification in January. Exactly when a subscriber can run TripCHEQ for a specific flight depends on how early the operator assigns the flight crew. Most TripCHEQ reports are run 24 to 48 hours before the flight.

A TripCHEQ report will rate a flight green, yellow or red. A green result means that all components of the scheduled flight have passed the safety check. A yellow result is cautionary, warning that some aspect of the flight is not up to standard, for example, a flight crew that has only 240 hours of combined experience on an aircraft that requires 250 hours of experiene to meet the safety standard. In cases like these, ARG/US will ask for an update from the operator. “Argus tries to give operators every opportunity to update,” said Tyler. If the crew has recently earned their hours, the result will change to green, but if no update is obtained or if the flight crew is still short on hours, the result becomes red, or fail. Another cause for a red result is assignment of a pilot with a safety violation on his record.

Wyvern

Wyvern Consulting created the PASS program as a due diligence check for charter operators. Costs range from $200 a month for a limited number of reports to $2,000 for unlimited reports and marketing tools. In the future, Wyvern plans to offer the public the ability to generate a PASS report for any charter flight through their website for $99 per report.

Like TripCHEQ, the PASS program evaluates the crew, aircraft and charter operator of a specific flight. The generated report reveals whether the flight passes or fails, based on the Wyvern safety standard. The PASS system depends on data like the pilots’ recent medical checks and what aircraft they are qualified to fly. The company also verifies that the operator has a legal certificate filed with the FAA and confirms that the specific aircraft scheduled for the flight is filed on that certificate. The PASS system automatically downloads data each night and requires very little in the way of manual intervention. For example, if an operator adds a pilot, Wyvern automatically contacts the FAA immediately to make sure pilot has a certificate filed. If a PASS report fails, Wyvern sends an automatic notice asking for updated information to the charter operator. Once the operator fills out the necessary data, the client who generated the PASS report is automatically notified that the updates have been made and the flight is safe.

Operators can generate PASS reports on themselves, so any customer who is flying with that operator can request the information. “The ability to hand a passenger a PASS report demonstrates the operator’s commitment to safety in a tangible way,” said Bonney Pelley, vice president of operations for CharterX Wyvern. OneSky Jets, for example, recently partnered with Wyvern to provide a PASS report for each trip it arranges for its clients.

Do I need to worry?

Private jet accidents don’t always make the news, but that doesn’t mean they don’t occur. Recently, Aviation International News (AIN) reported on statistics released by aviation safety firm, Robert E. Breiling Associates. Most notable were the number of accidents between 2005 and 2006 compared to the number of deaths. The report showed that in 2006 there were a total of 27 business aviation accidents, lower than in the previous year. While the number of business aviation accidents declined, the number of fatalities actually increased from 38 to 53. The AIN quoted Robert E. Breiling attributing many of the accidents to the fact that the Part 135 fleet had “deteriorated considerably.”

But this aging fleet of aircraft is certainly getting a boost from some charter and fractional providers. The last several years have seen record numbers of orders for new aircraft to replenish older fleets. The new aircraft have the advantage of the latest navigation and avionics technologies, which could arguably make the planes safer than their predecessors. While flight safety is nothing to take lightly, for fliers who exercise due diligence and charter planes with operators who have stamps of approval from either ARG/US or Wyvern, the risk of private jet travel is small.