The late great Jim Nabors, who played Gomer Pyle, used to say, “Shame, Shame, Shame”. We hear all the time about Part 135 (actual Direct Air Carrier) charter operators and Part 91 (non-commercial Private owners). And sometimes about the gray market Part 134 1/2, but not a lot about Part 295 of the FAA regulations. Our topic today is Part 295 private jet charter brokers and free flights.
Part 295 of thttps://aviation.blueislanddigital.com/secret-to-being-a-successful-air-charter-broker/he Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) governs how private jet charter brokers must operate. The purpose is to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive practices. This includes disclosures, marketing, and unfair methods of competition. The regulations were enacted by the Department of Transportation (DOT) in 2019 to make the industry more transparent.
One of the regulations states specifically,
“All solicitation materials and advertisements, including internet web pages, published or caused to be published by air charter brokers shall clearly and conspicuously state that the air charter broker is an air charter broker, and that it is not a direct air carrier or a direct foreign air carrier in operational control of aircraft…”
This is why virtually every private jet charter website has fine print on the bottom of the page explaining how they operate. Although, surprisingly, some don’t.
One of the areas that caught our attention was in a recent article from the Aircraft Guys blog. Here they were highlighting a newly opened Boca Raton, Florida private jet charter that offers a free flight and how unique that is. They were correct, it is unique, and the flight is free.
We took some time and did lots and lots of Google searches. We then studied the offerings.
Why a free flight offering is relevant to this article is because most if not all are not free. This could certainly be seen as misleading and/or deceptive marketing in violation of Part 295.
We’re not going to name the organizations who are breaking the rules, in our opinion. But we will name the only company we found who appears be truly giving away a free flight. That’s the one mentioned by the Aircraft Guys. They use the name “The Boca Jet” operated by InstaJet Charters. The caveat is it does appear to be a limited time offer.
We will say one of the companies, who does a lot of advertising, claims to offer a free flight but requires a non-refundable $15,000 fee to join a membership. Additionally they require a hefty prepayment of jet card hours. I guess that covers the cost of the free flight, so certainly not free.
There is an old saying, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true, or something like that. But there does appear to be one that is genuine.