Charter Broker Disclosures: What Part 295 Requires

Charter broker disclosures are the least glamorous paperwork in private aviation, and the most useful thing you can ask for before you wire a deposit. Mid October is when the question stops being academic. Holiday availability is tightening, unfamiliar names start appearing in inboxes with "we have a jet on your dates," and the pressure to sign quickly is exactly the condition under which people skip the only questions that matter. The good news is that you are not asking for a favor. Most of what you want is already owed to you under federal rule.

Who is actually selling you the flight

Nearly every private flight in the United States is operated by an FAA Part 135 certificated carrier. That company owns or manages the aircraft, employs the crew, and holds operational control. If you booked through a broker, the broker is not that company. A broker is regulated separately by the Department of Transportation under 14 CFR Part 295, as an indirect air carrier or, in some arrangements, as a bona fide agent. JetNine is a Part 295 broker, and every flight we arrange is operated by a Part 135 carrier. We have a whole page on how those two roles split responsibility, because the split is the thing most first-time charterers get wrong.

Why this matters in October specifically: peak dates compress the market, and a broker with thin operator relationships starts shopping further afield. The quote still looks like a quote. The carrier behind it may be one nobody at that desk has ever met. Part 295 does not vet operators for you. What it does is force the name into daylight, which is where your own judgment, or ours, can go to work on it.

What must be disclosed before you contract

Part 295 separates the disclosure list into two buckets, and the distinction is worth knowing because it changes how you ask.

Three items are owed to you before you enter the contract, whether or not you ask:

1. The operating carrier's corporate name, plus any other names it does business under. Not "a Part 135 operator." The legal entity.
2. The capacity the broker is acting in. Indirect air carrier, foreign indirect air carrier, your agent, or the carrier's agent. These are not interchangeable, and the difference decides whose interests the broker is legally representing.
3. Whether the broker carries liability insurance covering you, your passengers and your property, and the limits of that coverage.

Disclosure can be electronic, so an email reply is a valid answer. A refusal to put it in writing is also an answer, just a more informative one. On our trip sheets the operating carrier and tail number appear before departure as a matter of course, and we would rather you check that against the operator vetting standard we publish than take our word for it.

The three items you have to ask for

The second bucket is only owed on request. This is the part brokers quietly rely on, because almost nobody asks.

Conflicts of interest. If the broker is acting as your agent, it must disclose any corporate or business relationship with the operating carrier, including preexisting contracts, that could influence which carrier it picked for you. Read that twice. A broker can have a volume agreement that makes one operator more profitable to place you on than another, and you will never learn about it unless the question leaves your mouth.

The total cost paid to or through the broker. Every fee, broker-side and carrier-side, plus government taxes such as the 7.5 percent federal excise tax on domestic charter. The rule does not require line-item itemization, so a single all-in number is compliant. It is still a far better basis for comparison than three quotes with three different ideas of what is included. Our guide to comparing charter quotes covers how to normalize them, and the cost calculator will give you an independent read before anyone sends you a number at all.

Third-party charges you pay directly. Fuel, landing fees, parking and hangar charges. If the amount is not known, the broker owes you a good-faith estimate. In December, hangar and de-icing exposure at a busy mountain or Northeast field is not a rounding error, and "we will let you know" is not an estimate.

Ask for all three in one email. It takes a minute, and the quality of the reply tells you more about the desk than any amount of website polish.

Why the agency question is the sharpest one

Of the six disclosures, the one people skip is the one we would keep if we could only keep one: in what capacity is this broker acting.

An indirect air carrier is selling you transportation in its own name and taking on the obligations that go with that. A bona fide agent is acting for someone, and the whole question is for whom. If a broker is the operator's agent, it is not your advocate in a dispute, and it may have had very little discretion in which aircraft you were offered. None of these arrangements is improper. Part 295 permits all of them. What is not permitted is leaving you unclear about which one applies to your booking, and Part 295 treats a violation of its terms as an unfair or deceptive practice under federal law.

The rule also bars brokers from presenting themselves as the operator. Advertising, websites included, must say clearly that the company is a broker, is not in operational control, and that a licensed direct air carrier will fly the trip. A site that implies a fleet it does not hold is not being coy. It is out of compliance. What a broker actually does is a reasonable thing to want explained, and any desk worth hiring will explain it without being pushed.

What happens when the disclosure comes late or changes

Charter is a moving target, and the rule accounts for that. If information was not available when you contracted, or changes before the flight, the broker has to get it to you within a reasonable time so you can decide whether to go. The teeth are in what follows: if required information is not provided within a reasonable time before the flight, you may cancel and receive a full refund. If something changes after the trip has started, and you are not told within a reasonable time, you may cancel the remaining portion and be refunded for what was not performed.

Separately, Part 295 requires prompt refunds when transportation cannot be performed, with cash and check refunds due within twenty days of a complete request and credit card refunds following the card rules. That is a federal floor, not a customer service gesture. Your contract may give you more, and the cancellation terms on your specific booking are where that gets decided.

A late operator substitution is where this bites most often. The carrier named at signing is replaced two days out, which is routine in December and perfectly legal. What is not optional is telling you, in time for you to say no.

What to do with this in the next ten minutes

If you have a charter contract sitting unsigned, reply to it with four lines. Name the operating carrier. State the capacity you are acting in. Confirm your liability insurance and limits. Give me the all-in cost and any fees I pay directly on site.

A desk that has the answers will send them back the same hour. A desk that negotiates with the question has told you what you needed to know. If you want help reading what comes back, or a second quote to read it against, our view on choosing a charter company is the longer version, and the dispatch desk is open.