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 FAA Part 135 certificate 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 federal regulation. 14 CFR Part 135 governs the operator. 14 CFR 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.

What Part 295 makes a broker tell you

Part 295 is short, and its consumer-protection rules fit on one page. In plain terms, a broker must:

• Say what it is. Every advertisement and every web page a broker publishes must state clearly that it is an air charter broker, not a direct air carrier in operational control of the aircraft, and that the flight will be flown by a properly licensed direct air carrier (section 295.23). That is the sentence at the foot of every UpLeg page.
• Name the operator. Before you contract, or if it is not known then, within a reasonable time and in any case before the flight, the broker must tell you the corporate name of the direct air carrier that will be in operational control of the aircraft, and in what capacity the broker itself is acting (section 295.24).
• Answer three questions on request: whether it has a corporate or business relationship with that operator; the total cost of the transportation paid to or through the broker, fees and taxes included; and any fees collected by third parties (section 295.24). And, without being asked, tell you before you contract whether it carries liability insurance of its own covering you and your passengers, and for how much.
• Tell you in time, or let you out. If the required information is not known when you contract, or changes afterwards, the broker must supply it within a reasonable time; if it fails to, you may cancel the contract and receive a full refund (section 295.24).
• Use only authorized operators. A broker may only arrange a flight with a carrier that holds the Department of Transportation's economic authority and the FAA's safety authority for that operation (section 295.20), and it may not engage in any unfair or deceptive practice (section 295.22).
• Refund promptly. When a flight cannot be performed, or a refund is otherwise due, the broker must refund what was paid promptly (section 295.26).

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.

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.

How UpLeg does it

UpLeg has three doors. The board lists the empty legs operators have published, re-read every half hour, each with an estimated total for the whole aircraft. A specialized inquiry asks us to find an empty leg that is not listed, on your route and dates and up to your budget. 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. You ask, which costs nothing: no deposit, no membership, no card on file. We confirm availability with the operator and send you one final price for the whole aircraft, with the operator named, before you agree to anything. You agree to a short set of terms, and you pay once, to the operator or to UpLeg, as your quote says. The flight is flown by the operator under its own certificate and its own insurance. The booking guide goes through it step by step.

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 to 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.

• Which operator will fly me? You are entitled to the corporate name before you contract, and it is the name to check against the FAA's list of Part 135 certificate holders.
• Is that aircraft one the operator is approved to fly for hire? Every aircraft an operator flies for hire is listed in its FAA operations specifications, and a tail number that is not there is not a legal charter.
• Who insures the flight, and for how much? The operator's liability insurance covers the flight; whether the broker carries cover of its own is a separate question, and Part 295 requires the broker to tell you before you contract, asked or not.
• What is the cancellation policy? The operator's policy governs, and it belongs in the quote before you agree, not in an email afterwards.
• What happens if the operator cancels? The answer should say what is refunded and by whom; this guide gives UpLeg's.
• How is the broker paid? Not necessarily the amount, but the mechanism: inside the total, added on top, or paid by the operator. Ask, and expect a straight answer.

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.

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.