What Is a Part 135 Operator Safety Record?

How it works

Part 135 is a United States regulation. 14 CFR Part 135 sets the operating rules for on-demand air charter in the US, and a company flying under it holds an FAA air carrier certificate issued under 14 CFR Part 119, with operations specifications naming what it is authorised to fly. The certificate itself says only that the FAA has approved the operator to fly commercially; it is not a safety score.

What gets called an operator's "safety record" is not one document. It is a composite that a broker, cardholder or buyer assembles from several separate sources, all specific to the United States system. These typically include: the operator's history of FAA enforcement actions and certificate status, checkable through FAA records; accident and incident reports filed with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB); the operator's insurance history and current coverage; and results from voluntary third-party audits, such as an ARGUS Gold or Platinum rating, a Wyvern Wingman or Registered audit, or an IS-BAO stage assessment. None of these audits are run by the FAA, and none is compulsory; an operator can hold a valid Part 135 certificate with no third-party audit at all.

The distinction matters because a Part 135 operator is the party legally responsible for the flight, as distinct from a charter broker, who arranges the trip but holds no certificate and bears no certificate-holder liability. A buyer checking a "safety record" is, in effect, checking the operator's regulatory standing with the FAA and its voluntary audit history side by side, since the United States has no single published safety rating that merges the two.

This describes the position in the United States as it stood in September 2026; FAA enforcement practice and audit-provider criteria are both subject to change, and the underlying rule, 14 CFR Part 135, is amended from time to time.

Cost impact

A United States Part 135 operator's safety record carries no separate line on an invoice; there is no fee called a "safety record charge". Its cost effect is indirect, working through two channels. First, insurers price Part 135 risk partly on an operator's audit tier and enforcement history, and that premium is built into the operator's hourly rate rather than shown separately. Second, brokers and jet card or membership programmes that restrict themselves to audited operators, an ARGUS Platinum or Wyvern Wingman fleet only, for example, generally draw from a smaller, often costlier pool of aircraft, which can raise the quoted rate versus an unrestricted search.

To size this illustratively: suppose an unrestricted charter search returns an illustrative average rate of $8,000 an hour, while a search limited to operators holding a current third-party audit returns an illustrative average of $8,600 an hour, a difference of $600 an hour, about 7.5% of the base rate. That gap is not a regulatory fee; it reflects the smaller supply of audited operators and their generally higher insurance cost, and it varies by aircraft category, route and which audit tier is required.

Example

Suppose, for illustration, a broker in the United States is quoting the same midsize jet trip from two Part 135 operators. Operator A holds a current FAA Part 135 certificate, an ARGUS Platinum rating and an IS-BAO Stage 3 assessment, and has no open FAA enforcement action on record. Operator B holds a valid Part 135 certificate but no third-party audit, and has one open FAA enforcement matter from the past year.

Operator A quotes an illustrative $9,200 an hour for the trip; Operator B quotes an illustrative $8,300 an hour for the same aircraft type and route. On an illustrative four-hour round trip, that is a difference of $3,600, roughly 11% of Operator B's total price of $33,200 against Operator A's $36,800. Neither figure is set by the FAA; both are the operators' own commercial rates, shaped in part by their audit standing and insurance cost. A buyer weighing the two is trading a lower price against a thinner public safety record, a comparison the FAA's own certificate does not make for them.