Aviation News Item: 04629

1st Feb 2010

Source: bjtonline.com

We all have plenty of operators to choose from when we need to book a charter flight. I stay loyal to the ones that do the best overall job for me. I might not fly with them often, but when I need an airplane in their part of the country, they're the ones I call.

How have they gained my loyalty? Here are the questions I ask myself to evaluate charter operators and decide whether to continue flying with them.

1. Does the operator make me feel safe? We were about 45 minutes outside of Georgetown, Texas, flying home one December evening. The weather, unusual for central Texas, had deteriorated to what you'd expect from winter up north. The captain kept looking back through the cabin at something, and he sure seemed worried. My colleague asked me, "What's the pilot looking at?" I was afraid he was trying to see the wings to check for ice buildup, but I didn't know, and there was too much turbulence for me to go forward and ask him.

Whatever he was worried about, we could have landed earlier, rented a car and driven home. Or had dinner and waited for the weather to clear before finishing the flight. My point isn't whether or not I was safe; it's that I didn't feel safe. If ever an operator or crew does anything to make me worry about safety, that's the last trip we'll fly together.

Contrast that trip with one where I felt completely safe. Late one afternoon, I flew from Indianapolis to Columbus, Ohio, to have dinner with clients; and I was scheduled to fly to Milwaukee later that evening. When I returned to the FBO after dinner, the captain was waiting for me.

"Mr. Ryan, we're going to start running into some turbulence just east of Chicago over the lake," he said. "We believe it's perfectly safe to make the trip, but it will get kind of bumpy the closer we get to Chicago and will stay like that all the way into Milwaukee.

"I'd like to suggest three options," the captain continued. "The first is to overnight here and go up early in the morning. The second is to take the flight and if you are the least bit uncomfortable along the way, we'll land, remain overnight and finish the flight in the morning. The third choice is to fly into Milwaukee this evening."

I asked the captain whether he felt any pressure at all from me or his company to go that evening. "None," he said. "And if I had any concerns, we wouldn't go."
I usually don't mind turbulence, so off we flew. Although it was bumpy, I wasn't the least bit worried because my captain had taken the time to give me a thorough briefing so I'd know what to expect.

2. Does the operator communicate with me? Let me tell you about an operator I stopped using after three trips. I was flying into Philadelphia one evening and wanted to land at Wings Field because it was only half a mile from my hotel. All my paperwork from the operator showed Wings. Imagine my surprise when we landed at Philadelphia Northeast. The captain told me dispatch had changed the destination before we took off because of deteriorating weather and that PNE was a much safer choice that evening than Wings.

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