Safety ratings
What Is a Third-Party Safety Audit?
In short
A third-party safety audit is an assessment of an aircraft operator's safety management, maintenance and training records carried out by an independent company such as ARGUS International or Wyvern, rather than by the operator itself or a government regulator. It is voluntary, carries no fixed fee to a charter client, but shapes which operators brokers will book.
How it works
A third-party safety audit is an evaluation of an aircraft operator's safety practices carried out by a company that is independent of both the operator being reviewed and the government body that certificates it. In the United States, the FAA issues an operator's air carrier certificate under 14 CFR Part 119, with operations specifications authorising Part 135 charter or Part 121 airline flying. In the UK, the Civil Aviation Authority issues an Air Operator Certificate, and EU member states issue one under EASA's Regulation 965/2012 (Air Operations). These certificates set the legal minimum an operator must meet to fly commercially in that jurisdiction, and this describes the position as of September 2026, subject to change.
A third-party audit sits alongside that certificate rather than replacing it. Auditors review the operator's safety management system, pilot training and duty-time records, maintenance history, insurance and, at the more rigorous tiers, conduct an on-site inspection of the aircraft, crew and operations base. The best-known programmes are run by ARGUS International and Wyvern, both United States-based aviation auditing companies, and by the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC), which administers the IS-BAO code. Each has its own tiered rating: ARGUS awards Gold and Platinum ratings, described in the entry for ARGUS Gold vs Platinum; Wyvern awards Registered and Wingman ratings, described in Wyvern Wingman vs Registered; IS-BAO uses Stages 1 to 3, described in that entry. A Part 135 Operator Safety Record, as this glossary defines it, is partly built from these audit results alongside an operator's accident history and FAA enforcement record, because no single official FAA safety score exists.
None of these audits is issued by a national aviation authority, and holding one is not a legal requirement to operate. A broker or jet card provider sets its own policy on which audits, and which tier, it requires before adding an operator to its panel; that policy varies by broker and is not fixed by any regulation in the US, the UK or the EU.
Cost impact
A third-party safety audit carries no direct charge on a charter invoice; it is not a line item, and a client is never billed for the audit itself. Its effect on price is indirect, working through two routes: the cost an operator absorbs to obtain and maintain the rating, and the narrower pool of operators available once a broker restricts its search to audited ones.
An operator preparing for an audit spends staff time on documentation and, for on-site tiers, hosts an inspection; that cost is generally recovered through the hourly rate charged to clients rather than as a separate fee. Where a broker's policy requires a specific audit tier, cheaper unaudited operators are removed from consideration even if they would otherwise be competitive on price. Suppose, for illustration, an unaudited operator quotes an hourly rate of $6,500 for a light jet on a given route, while a Wyvern Wingman-audited operator quotes $7,200 for a comparable aircraft on the same route: restricting the search to the audited operator here adds an illustrative $700 an hour, or an illustrative 11% above the unaudited quote, without any change in the aircraft type flown.
Example
Suppose, for illustration, a charter broker's internal policy requires every operator on its panel to hold either ARGUS Platinum or Wyvern Wingman before the broker will quote that operator's aircraft to a client. A prospective client requests a midsize jet for a domestic trip within the United States, and the broker returns one quote, from an ARGUS Platinum-rated operator, at an illustrative $8,400 per flight hour. A separate, unaudited operator is found independently offering a comparable aircraft at an illustrative $7,600 per flight hour, but the broker will not present that quote because the operator fails its audit requirement. Through that broker, the client's effective price is the illustrative $8,400 hourly rate of the audited operator, an illustrative $800 an hour above the unaudited alternative that exists in the wider market but falls outside the broker's panel.
Related terms
- IS-BAO Stages 1, 2 and 3
IS-BAO Stages 1, 2 and 3 are three levels within the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations, a voluntary safety code from the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC). Stage 1 shows a safety management system exists on paper; Stage 2, that it functions; Stage 3, that it is mature. It carries no direct fee, though it affects operator selection.
- Part 135 Operator Safety Record
A Part 135 Operator Safety Record is the aggregate history of an operator holding a United States FAA Part 135 air carrier certificate: its accident and incident history, FAA enforcement actions, and results from voluntary third-party audits such as ARGUS or Wyvern. No single official FAA score exists; brokers and buyers piece it together from separate sources.
- Charter Broker vs Operator
A charter broker arranges flights by finding an aircraft and operator for a client, but owns no aircraft and holds no operating certificate. An operator holds that certificate — in the US an FAA Part 135 certificate, in the UK and EU an Air Operator Certificate — and is legally responsible for the flight, which affects liability and pricing transparency.
- Tail Number
A tail number is the unique registration identifier painted on an aircraft's tail and fuselage, issued by a national aviation authority — an N-number by the US FAA, a G-prefix mark by the UK CAA. It identifies one specific aircraft, letting a buyer verify its safety records and operator, rather than pricing anything directly.