Welcome to private jet charter. Whether you’re a long-time charter customer or among the many new to flying privately, and regardless of your provider, we at Paramount Business Jets want your next journey to be the best and safest charter travel experience possible — seamless, comfortable, and secure. It is truly a world of travel most can only imagine.
The charter company you work with is the key to the quality of your charter experience, and with literally thousands of providers, choosing the best charter broker for your needs can be challenging.
A quality charter broker has the expertise, contacts, and ability to locate and book an aircraft that best suits your needs at the optimum price on a trip-by-trip basis. They can also provide any requested services onboard the aircraft, and on the ground at either end of the flight. The bottom-line benefit: A good broker saves clients time and money.
These capabilities are especially important now, as demand for charter aircraft has soared in the aftermath of the pandemic, testing many brokers’ capacity to consistently deliver the experience that charter customers have rightfully come to expect.
It might surprise you to learn there is no licensing requirement to become an air charter broker, or any test to pass, making it all the more important to evaluate charter companies before booking a trip.
Fortunately, Department of Transportation rules enacted in 2019 established consumer protections for charter customers, to ensure services and charges are fully disclosed and appropriately rendered. But that leaves a large margin between adequate, and the best.
Paramount Business Jets has been providing premium air charter service since 2005, and while we’ve grown considerably, our operating principals, based on old-fashioned values of trust and transparency, remain the same. Those include an overriding emphasis on safety, total transparency in pricing and business operations, and complete dedication to our clients. In that spirit, we’d like to share our thoughts and practices on quality air charter to consider when choosing the best broker for your coming journeys.
A Focus on Flight Safety
Safety should always be air charter’s #1 concern and focus, and it is the foundation upon which Paramount Business Jets is built. Ensure your broker is certified to safety auditing standards established by Argus and/or Wyvern, and equivalent standards internationally, and uses only aircraft and crews that meet these standards.
Paramount provides clients with a complete Argus TripCHEQ safety report, WYVERN Pass report, or an in-house Paramount Safety Report on their crew and aircraft prior to the flight, and we perform additional in-house verification. When arranging international charters, we verify that all aircraft, crews, and fleet operators we work with meet Argus Gold standards.
Unique Expertise
It takes expertise — a combination of experience and knowledge — to create and orchestrate a charter flight that feels effortless and completely relaxed to travelers. That expertise starts in the cockpit, where we ensure experienced, safety-vetted two-person crews pilot every Paramount Business Jets charter flight.
Expect your broker to also have expertise in the category and individual models of aircraft best suited to your mission, and the benefit of ongoing relationships with the top fleet operators that allow. A brokerage needs expertise in the destinations, routes, ground facilities, service providers, and all the location-specific factors that can affect private jet travel. A broker should also have accumulated a substantial track record in helping clients plan their journeys to avoid travel issues, and in handling disruptions and unexpected events that can affect air charter.
Service and Financial Transparency
Though more costly than other travel options, we believe air charter provides excellent value. We also believe that brokers have a financial obligation to get the best possible price for clients on every trip and that the sums involved make it especially important for brokerages to provide complete financial transparency. That includes providing customers with a clear accounting of what they’re paying for, the identities of the service providers, and the costs.
Paramount Business Jets does not mark up outsourced services and charges, which can include fuel surcharges, de-icing, and airport fees; many charter brokers do, and customers should ask about any such services and expenses to ensure they understand the final cost.
Moreover, as customers must pay for air charter in advance of the flight, we believe a separate account for prepayments should be available; many providers deposit prepayments in general operating accounts, before the flight.
Paramount Business Jets does not co-mingle client funds with our operation’s needs. Their prepayment funds are kept separately, identified by each client, and held in non-fluctuating, zero-risk accounts (i.e., FDIC insured bank accounts).
If you prefer to keep your funds in a secure, separate account, ask your broker if that is an option.
Trip Recovery Capability
Business jets, though marvels of performance and comfort, are also machines, and subject to mechanical or technical issues that can temporarily take them out of service, potentially disrupting carefully scheduled charter plans. Fleet operators have little legal obligation to grounded charter customers other than returning their money for the flight.
Ask brokers about recovery policies and procedures, and consider their ability to quickly find alternate solutions for a customer. Paramount has a fulfillment department dedicated to fast recoveries in the event of a trip disruption, and in most cases, we can arrange a replacement charter at the same price and schedule as originally booked.
Conversely, unplanned events can force customers to change charter plans and potentially forfeit some or all of the flight costs, due to fleet operators’ cancellation policies. Because of the volume of charter we book and our dedication to clients, we are often successful in negotiating a return or reduction of such fees.
ESG and Company Values
We believe every business has a responsibility to bring value to its community. Moreover, aviation companies have ample opportunity to demonstrate what they stand for through sustainability and carbon reduction initiatives, community engagement, charitable activities, and promotion of workplace diversity and inclusivity.
Paramount, for example, has been in the vanguard of brokers offering carbon offset programs and providing customers the option of flying carbon neutral. We developed and posted business aviation’s first online carbon offset calculator, enabling anyone to quickly determine the carbon footprint, and corresponding carbon offset needed for a carbon-neutral flight, based on route and aircraft category. (We also made the code freely available so anyone could host the offset calculator on their own site.) We are also proud to make a difference on the ground through our vigorous community support efforts.
Interested customers can usually find information about such activities on company websites, posted in the spirit of encouraging community involvement and promoting values its people believe in.
Many more ingredients go into making a quality charter broker, and there are many additional ways to gauge them, from their support teams working behind the scenes to online customer reviews, to the nature of the relationships forged with clients.
We are confident that evaluating these attributes and characteristics can help identify a quality broker ready to support your seamless, comfortable, and secure air charter journey ahead!
Ready to book your next business flight with Paramount Business Jets? Then visit our Private Jets and Aircraft for Charter Flights page today to see the aircraft we have available, or request a quote.
If you have any questions or special requirements, just call us on +1-877-727-2538 ext. 1 or email us at charter@paramountbusinessjets.com. We can arrange a trip that’s perfectly tailored to suit all your needs.
