The business of renting an entire aircraft instead of booking individual aircraft seats through a traditional airline is called Air charter. While most airlines are concerned with selling transportation by the seat, air charter service companies deal with individual private aircraft, cargo, time sensitive or urgent freight, air ambulance or some other variety of ad hoc air transportation.
Although a part of general aviation, a chartered aircraft is also referred as air taxi, chartered jet or executive charter.
Before chartering a flight, it is very important to thoroughly know the services offered by the charter company. Given below is a list of few essential aspects one must consider while hiring a charter flight operator:
• Strategic Position: It is very important for any charter flight operator to have strategically positioned offices at all places that are commercially important. One should always prefer a company that has several branch offices. These branches should be strategically spread i.e. they should cover as many continents and countries as possible.
• Extensive network: The charter company must have an excellent working relationship with other aircraft operators, airline companies and leasing agencies all over the world. The company should have long term relations so that it is reputed enough to draw resources at short notice or in case of an emergency to and from any part of the world. Clients must ensure that the charter company can provide a broad spectrum of the most suitable aircrafts that are capable enough to meet all requirements of clients from various fields.
• Maximum support and round the clock service: You must ensure that the charter company has an expert team of professionals who are available twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. The company should offer cost effective and efficient charter and leasing solutions. They should have specific arrangements to cater all classes of people ranging from Head of the states, VIPs, Business executives, etc. One should also ensure that the charter company is able to help its clients find the right aircraft for the right price.
• In depth regional experience: You should check the background and history of the charter company and also find out how long has it been in operation.
Operation over a period of time allows the company to gain an in depth knowledge of factors affecting air travel in a particular region along with the system and culture of that region. This will be a major factor to provide prompt solution to all demands and requirements of the clients. It’s very essential for the company to have multi-lingual and multi-cultural staffs experienced enough to continuously monitor all clients and provide maximum support.
• On line database: The air charter service must have a diverse and intense network to enable clients to access all vital information concerning the company and its service and support systems. The company should be able to provide smooth, fast and reliable feedback to any proposal or enquiry from any of its clients.
An air charter service differs from scheduled aviation in many ways. But, from the point of view of the client it can be explained with three words – Privacy, efficiency and flexibility. No matter what the priorities are chartered air travel provides the freedom to organise and plan trips as per personal needs.