Air Carrier Certification

An air carrier can be purchased with guarantees of no debt, no violations, no judgments, and no other liabilities. It can be fully operational with your aircraft in about three months or less depending on the type of aircraft and operations desired. All air carriers will support aircraft with ten-or-more passenger seats and can be tailored to support more than nineteen passenger seats (up to 30 passenger seats). Additional authorizations are available to tailor the certificate to your business needs.

Citizenship: You must be a US citizen; or, ⅔ of the directors are US citizens and 75% voting interest are US citizens.

Aircraft: You must have an aircraft registered in the US that is compliant with the Federal Aviation Regulations and meets the requirements for the type of operations you desire. An FAA aircraft registration, dry lease, or purchase order is sufficient to get the process started. A "sole use" aircraft is on the certificate but will be replaced by your initial aircraft.

Management Personnel: You must have a Director of Operations, Chief Pilot, and Director of Maintenance that meets the requirements of CFR 119.71. Management positions are initially filled and the managers may continue in their roles, as appropriate.

Fit, Willing, and Able: You must have the economic resources that you will commit to the operations and maintenance of the air carrier.

Time to Launch: You will be fully operational with your aircraft in weeks or months with relatively little effort. You avoid a lengthly wait to get started on a new certificate, which could be years in some districts; and, you avoid the time required to comply with the FAA's new Safety Assurance System, which could be a half year or more.

Experienced Management: You will have a management team that has experience in both certification and operations to support certificate changes and ongoing flight operations. Manuals and training material will be tailored to your business and operational needs.

Hiring and Training: The hiring process will assure compliance with the FAA required PRIA process and record-keeping requirements. Training includes computer-based training on general subjects, PowerPoint training on company procedures, and simulator ground and flight training in accordance with our FAA approved company training program.

No Liabilities: You are guaranteed that there is no debt, no judgments, no violations, and no other liabilities because the air carrier is relatively new and in good standing with the FAA and the State (a certificate of good standing is provided).

1. Letter of Intent: It is a collaborative effort between the seller and buyer.

   A letter of intent is a bullet list of expectations, requirements, and certificate features that summarizes the air carrier acquisition.

   Serves as input to the Purchase Agreement.

   Once the parties are in agreement, it can be signed and a deposit made. This will commit both parties to the transaction.

2. Deposit: A deposit is made in exchange for copies of all the letters, forms, and manuals approved or submitted to the FAA.

   Within a specified time period, the company books and records are made available to the buyer to validate that the company is as advertised.

   A purchase agreement is drafted in collaboration between both the buyer and seller.

   A purchase agreement is drafted in collaboration between both the buyer and seller. If the buyer and seller agree, work can begin to add pilots and aircraft to the certificate.

3. Purchase Agreement: The Purchase Agreement is a legal document that provides details on the terms of conditions of the sale.

   A purchase agreement is drafted in collaboration between both the buyer and seller.

   A summary of the Purchase Agreement is presented below under Major Milestone 3.

4. Closing: At this time the buyer becomes the new owner.

   Upon closing the buyer receives company assets (Air Carrier Certificate).

   A Certificate of Ownership; and, the seller receives full payment.

Upon signing the LOI and receiving a financial transaction, the work begins. It is not uncommon to complete the major certificate changes and be ready to submit revised manuals and new authorization requests shortly after closing. And then the fun begins...