How air charter brokers work, and how they are paid

Broker or operator: what is the difference?

Two different businesses stand behind every brokered flight. The operator owns or manages the aircraft, employs the crew, holds the Part 135 certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that makes it legal to sell flights to the public, carries the insurance and has operational control: the decisions about whether, when and how the flight is flown are its alone. The broker holds none of that. It arranges the flight: finds the aircraft, agrees the price, handles the paperwork and stays in the loop until you land.

In the United States the two roles are defined in Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Part 135 governs the operator. Part 295 governs the broker, which it defines as a person or company that holds out, sells or arranges charter flights either as a bona fide agent, for you or for the operator, or as an indirect air carrier contracting in its own name. UpLeg is an air charter broker under Part 295 and acts as your agent; every flight it arranges is flown by a Part 135 operator that is named to you before you pay. This is important because the two names on a flight answer two different questions: who is responsible for the aircraft, and who found it for you.

What does Part 295 make a broker tell you?

Part 295 is short, and its consumer-protection rules fit on one page. In plain terms, a broker must do six things, and the table names the section behind each one and where you see it on UpLeg.

These are duties, not a licence. Part 295 issues no licence or certificate to brokers: a broker's authority to operate is a blanket exemption it keeps by complying, so a broker calling itself licensed is describing a document that does not exist. The certificate that matters is the operator's, and it is the operator's name you should check. According to section 295.24, that name is yours before you contract, and it is essential to use it: the FAA publishes the list of Part 135 certificate holders, and a name that is not on it is not a legal charter.

How is a broker paid?

A broker is paid for the booking. You pay one total for the flight, and the broker's compensation is part of that total: either the difference between what the operator charges and what you agreed to, or a commission the operator pays the broker out of its own price. Either way it is inside the number you agree to, and Part 295 entitles you to ask, before you contract and before you fly, for the total cost paid to or through the broker.

On UpLeg the rule is written into the Terms: UpLeg is compensated for arranging every booking, the amount is set per booking, it is included in the total you agree to, and it is never added afterwards. It is not a separate line on your quote, and on request we confirm what UpLeg receives in connection with your flight. Whether the payee is the operator or UpLeg, you pay once, to whoever your quote names, and never both for the same flight.

There is no fee number on this page or anywhere on the site, because the amount is set booking by booking and a figure printed here would be wrong for most of them. Ask, and we tell you yours. What you can compare between brokers is the quoted total for the same aircraft on the same trip, and totals for one trip can differ significantly from one broker to the next, which is a reason to ask two.

How does UpLeg do it?

UpLeg has three doors. The board lists the empty legs operators have published, re-read every half hour as of September 2026, each with an estimated total for the whole aircraft. Trip Finder matches your trip against every listed leg, close matches included, and sends the ones you pick to us together, a request for each. A charter request asks us to quote any trip on your dates, one-way or round trip. Whichever door you use, the sequence is the same.

1. Step 1. You ask, which costs nothing: no deposit, no membership, no card on file. On the board that is a Request on a listed leg; otherwise it is the inquiry or the charter form.
2. Step 2. We confirm availability with the operator and send you one final price for the whole aircraft, fees and taxes included, with the operator named, before you agree to anything.
3. Step 3. You agree to a short set of terms on your booking page, and you pay once, to the operator or to UpLeg, as your quote says.
4. Step 4. The flight is flown by the operator under its own certificate and its own insurance, from the private terminal it names, whether that is Teterboro Airport for New York or Van Nuys for Los Angeles.

The booking guide goes through each step slowly. UpLeg is run by its founder, a private pilot and corporate aviation advisor, and every request is read by a person. How we check an operator against the FAA's own list of Part 135 certificate holders, and what a certificate does and does not tell you, is on how we vet operators; who we are is on the About page.

What should you ask any broker?

Before you pay anyone for a private flight, six questions separate a broker doing its job from one that is not. A good broker answers all of them without being pressed.

The first two questions you can check yourself, and it is essential to do so at least once, because the certificate is the only thing that separates a legal charter from an illegal one. Four steps, ten minutes.

1. Step 1. Get the operator's corporate name from the broker, in writing, before you contract. Part 295 entitles you to it.
2. Step 2. Find that name on the FAA's list of Part 135 certificate holders, linked under Sources below. A trade name may differ from the corporate name; ask for both.
3. Step 3. Ask for the tail number of the aircraft and ask the operator to confirm it is on its operations specifications. An operator that flies for hire keeps that list current and will answer.
4. Step 4. Ask who insures the flight and for how much. The operator carries the liability cover; the broker must tell you before you contract whether it carries any of its own.

Why do brokers exist at all?

Because charter inventory is scattered. The FAA's list of Part 135 certificate holders is long, the operators on it are spread across the country, and none of them publishes a timetable. Finding the right aircraft, at the right base, free on your date, at a fair price, is phone calls and relationships; a broker makes those calls for a living and knows which operators answer.

Empty legs are the sharpest example. They exist for a day or a week, they are posted on operator websites, in emails to brokers or nowhere at all, and they are gone the moment the charter that created them moves. Reading every published leg every half hour and asking operators about the ones that never go public is what UpLeg was built to do; the guide on what an empty leg is explains where they come from, and the Empty Leg Index shows how many are posted across the United States as of the moment you open it.

A broker earns its place when it saves you the search, tells you the truth about who is flying you, and puts the whole price in front of you before you say yes. Part 295 makes the second a legal duty, and the third a duty the moment you ask. The first is the job.