GETWINGSTOFLYPrivate Jet Services
Two pilots at work on a flight deck at night, city lights below

Crew

The People Who Fly You

The aircraft is the easy part. What decides the flight is who is in the left-hand seat, what they have flown, and where they have flown it recently.

The people on your aircraft

Who is on board.

Every charter we arrange above the lightest single-pilot categories is flown by two qualified pilots. It costs more. It is not negotiable, and no client has ever asked us to make it so.

Crew are employed by the operator, not by us. What we control is which operators we will put you with, and what we verify before we do.

  • A hand on the centre console of a flight deck01
    Left seat

    The Captain

    Holds an Airline Transport Pilot Licence, a current type rating for the specific aircraft, and command authority over the flight. Every decision to depart, divert, hold or cancel is theirs, and no commercial pressure from us or from you overrides it.

  • The flight deck of a modern business jet02
    Right seat

    The First Officer

    A second fully qualified pilot, not an assistant. Private jets above the lightest categories are flown by two-pilot crews for the same reason airliners are: one of them can become unavailable mid-flight, and the aircraft must still land.

  • A single cabin seat with a table laid for service03
    In the cabin

    The Cabin Attendant

    One person covers the whole cabin: safety, service and the bar. Trained in evacuation, decompression and first aid before anything else, which is the reason they are carried at all. Most business jets seat fewer than nineteen passengers, the threshold above which cabin crew become legally required, so a flight attendant on a heavy jet usually reflects an operator choosing to carry one.

  • A chef, butler and cabin crew preparing service in a VIP airliner galley04
    On VIP airliners

    A chef, a butler, a full crew

    A converted Boeing or Airbus has an airliner-sized galley and the crew complement to match. Food prepared in the air rather than reheated, a staffed bar, private suites. A conventional business jet galley only finishes what a ground kitchen has already cooked, so if cooking on board matters, it is an aircraft decision rather than a catering one.

  • A turnaround team cleaning, changing linen and restocking a private jet cabin05
    On the ground

    Cleaning and turnaround

    Aircraft are cleaned between flights by the handling agent at the private terminal, not by anyone on board. Deep cleans, linen, restocking and catering uplift all happen while you are elsewhere.

  • A personal assistant, nanny and security professional boarding as passengers06
    Passengers, not crew

    Your own staff

    An assistant, a security detail, a nanny or your own chef travel as passengers. They occupy seats, count toward weight and balance, and appear on the manifest filed with border authorities. Four principals and three staff is a seven-passenger booking, which can move you up a category, so tell us the real number at the enquiry rather than at the aircraft door.

Standards

What we check
before they fly.

None of this is unusual in professional aviation. What varies between brokers is whether anyone actually confirms it for your particular flight.

Licensing
Current ATPL or CPL as the operation requires, verified against the issuing authority at the time of booking rather than taken from a file.
Type rating
Rated on the specific aircraft type flying your trip. A rating on a similar airframe is not the same thing, and we do not treat it as one.
Recurrent training
Simulator training and checking at the intervals the operating authority requires, typically every six months for commercial crews, covering failures that cannot be practised in a real aircraft.
Medical certification
A current Class 1 aviation medical for both pilots, with the renewal date falling outside the period of your flight.
Airport experience
For restricted fields such as Courchevel and London City, and for high-altitude or short-runway airports, recent experience into that specific airport, not merely the qualification to attempt it.

Assignment

How a crew reaches your aircraft.

Four steps between the operator naming a crew and that crew meeting you at the aircraft door.

  1. 01

    Verified, not assumed

    Licences, medicals and type ratings are checked against operator records for the crew actually assigned to your flight.

  2. 02

    Matched to the route

    A crew current on the airport, the approach and the season. Alpine fields in January are not the same job as the same fields in July.

  3. 03

    Briefed on you

    Preferences, dietary requirements, languages, and how much interaction you want, passed to the crew before departure so nobody has to ask you twice.

  4. 04

    Bound to discretion

    Non-disclosure agreements with crew where you require them. What is said in the cabin does not leave it.

The flight deck of a modern business jet

Continuity

The same faces, where we can.

Crew rosters belong to operators, so no broker can promise the same pilots every time. What we can do is record who you flew with and request them again. On repeat routes with a regular operator, that request is usually granted.

It matters more than it sounds. A crew who already know that you work on the climb out and sleep after dinner do not need to be told twice.

A business jet waiting on the apron outside a private terminal

Ask us anything

Ask who is flying you.

Crew details, operator, accreditation and aircraft history are all available on request before you fly. If a broker will not tell you, that is your answer.

Speak to the Charter Desk