What "Fully Vetted" Actually Means
Every broker says it. Here is our checklist — every database, every document, every question.
Every charter broker's website says the same thing: "We only work with fully vetted, safety-audited operators."
Almost none of them will tell you what that means. Vetted how? Checked when?
Here is exactly what it means at VeraJets. This is every check we run before a client's money moves — written so you don't need to be a pilot to follow it, but specific enough that you can hold us to it.
Why we check
Two kinds of bad flights exist.
The first is the illegal charter: a private plane (flown under Part 91 rules) sold to the public as if it were a commercial flight (which must follow the stricter Part 135 rules). It looks identical from the cabin. But the crew isn't held to commercial rest limits, the maintenance isn't held to commercial standards — and if something goes wrong, the client's insurance may not pay, because the flight itself wasn't legal.
The second is quieter: a fully licensed operator you still shouldn't fly with. A Part 135 certificate is a license, not a grade. It means a company cleared the government's minimums — not that it maintains its airplanes well, trains its pilots hard, or pays its bills.
Our job is to catch both. Here's how.
Step 1 — We investigate before we ever call them
All from public records. The operator doesn't even know it's happening yet.
- FAA Aircraft Registry — who really owns the airplane, and whether its registration is current.
- Part 135 certificate check — does the company actually hold a commercial charter license? No certificate, conversation over.
- NTSB CAROL database — the operator's full accident and incident history.
- FAA AIDS database — a second accident database that catches smaller events below the NTSB's reporting line. We run both, because the gap between them is often the story.
- Safety ratings, verified at the source. The independent auditors — ARGUS, Wyvern, IS-BAO — publish directories of who currently holds a rating. We check the directory, not the operator's website, because expired badges have a way of staying on homepages.
- Flight activity. We pull the airplane's last 60–90 days of flying. A busy airplane is a healthy sign; one parked for months raises questions about maintenance and the operator's health.
- Court and lien records. Lawsuits, unpaid bills, liens against the company. A business in money trouble cuts maintenance corners first — and none of that shows up in an accident database.
Step 2 — We make them prove it on paper
Once there's a real trip, we ask the operator for documents. A good operator sends them the same day — the paperwork costs one email and the reward is a booking.
- OpSpecs D085 — the FAA document proving this exact airplane is listed on the operator's certificate. The single most important piece of paper in charter. It's the line between a legal flight and an illegal one, and an airplane can sit in a company's hangar wearing their paint without being on it.
- Certificate of insurance — sent to us directly by their insurance broker, not forwarded by the operator. That confirms it's real and current. Then we read the fine print: some "$50 million" policies quietly cap the payout at $1 million per passenger. On a full airplane, that cap is the whole policy.
- Crew names and experience — then we verify them through the FAA's airman registry. Flight hours are claimed; licenses and ratings are checkable, and we check them.
- Engine maintenance program (JSSI, ESP, or similar) — is upkeep funded continuously through a program, or handled pay-as-you-go? Its absence isn't disqualifying. It's a question we ask.
- Training and safety programs. Do crews train in a simulator or get checked in-house? Do they take part in ASAP, the FAA's voluntary safety-reporting program? Where are they on their Safety Management System (SMS)? A serious operator answers all of this without hesitating.
And if an operator refuses to send any of it? A refusal is an answer. A company that won't show its insurance or its D085 on a live booking has told us everything we need to know.
Step 3 — We ask the pilots who've flown for them
This is the part nobody can Google — and the reason our background matters. We come from the cockpit side of this industry. When an operator's name comes up, we text pilots who have actually flown for them and ask three questions:
How's their maintenance? Do they push crews into bad weather or long duty days? Would you put your family on that airplane?
Pilots answer other pilots honestly. The third question is the entire standard in one sentence.
Step 4 — We check the price
A safe operator with a dishonest quote still fails.
- We get 2–3 other operators to price the identical trip. That's the real market, side by side.
- We rebuild their number from scratch — flight time, fuel, crew, airport fees, taxes. If we can't reconstruct their total from its parts, we ask why.
- We check the tax lines. Legal U.S. charter carries federal excise tax, and it shows on the quote. A "charter" quote with no tax line — and no explanation when asked — is the classic fingerprint of an illegal charter.
- We look for padding. "All-in" totals with no breakdown, unexplained "fuel surcharges," positioning legs buried in the math, or a price well below market — which always has a reason you'll want to know before you board.
What every one of those line items actually is, and where padding hides inside it, is the whole subject of a companion piece: What a Private Jet Charter Actually Costs.
Step 5 — We read the contract
The quote makes promises. The contract decides which ones survive. Before a client signs, we check four things:
- Can they swap the airplane after you sign? Many contracts allow it — some even allow swapping the operating company. If your approval isn't required, everything we vetted can be quietly replaced with an airplane nobody checked.
- Where does your deposit sit — a protected escrow account, or the operator's own bank account?
- What are the real cancellation terms, in writing?
- What happens if the airplane breaks? Who pays for the recovery flight? Is a replacement guaranteed, and at whose cost? Most contracts are silent on this — the one thing clients care about most when it happens.
Step 6 — We check again. Every time.
The trap in "our vetted network" is the past tense. Vetted when? Certificates change. Insurance lapses. Airplanes move between operators mid-year.
So the vetting never finishes:
- On every booking, we re-confirm the D085 still lists that airplane, the insurance is still current, and nothing new has hit the accident records.
- Every six months, the whole public-record file gets refreshed.
- After every flight, we log how it actually went — on time, crew, airplane condition — so the file gets smarter with every trip.
The instant deal-breakers
Any one of these ends the conversation, no matter what else looks good:
- The airplane isn't on the operator's certificate (the D085 fails)
- The company quoting the trip holds no Part 135 certificate
- No federal excise tax line on a U.S. charter quote — and no answer when asked
- They refuse to show insurance or OpSpecs on a real booking
- "It's the owner's plane, we just handle scheduling" — the textbook line of illegal charter
- One pilot on a jet that requires two
- A broker who won't name the operator until after your deposit
- A recent serious accident that's still unresolved
One question to ask any broker
You don't need to hire us to use this page. Ask whoever books your flights one question: "Can you show me your vetting checklist?"
Not the sentence. The checklist. You've just read ours — every database, every form, every question.
It pairs with the other half of how we work: a flat, disclosed fee instead of a hidden markup (Brief No. 03 — The Broker Fee You Never See). Same idea both times. Everything on the table, before your money moves.
VeraJets is a Fort Lauderdale-based air charter brokerage operating under 14 CFR Part 295. We arrange flights on Part 135 certificated carriers; we do not operate aircraft. Also in this series: Brief No. 01 — Part 91 vs. Part 135: The Safety Gap · Brief No. 02 — The Economics of Charter Management · Brief No. 03 — The Broker Fee You Never See.