LevelFlight Safety Standard

A new standard in safety and regulatory compliance has emerged in the private jet charter industry thanks to partnership between forward-thinking aircraft charter operators and the innovative company Fly Compliant. At Global Air Charters, we are proud to be a long-standing partner in the development of the LevelFlight suite of cloud-based applications, used to manage operations and compliance, as well as to enhance safety.

Fly Compliant, LLC, created LevelFlight.com in 2000 as a first-of-its-kind online regulatory compliance tool. Working closely with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Fly Compliant earned acceptance of LevelFlight as a regulatory compliance system for the following FAA-required functions:

· A025 Electronic Recordkeeping
· Safety Management System (SMS)
· Continuing Analysis Surveillance System

Fly Compliant’s online tools shifted regulatory management of charter flights from outdated paper recordkeeping to digital administration, providing an automated system of checks and balances that ensures each private jet charter flight complies with regulations. In addition, an automatic risk-assessment tool enhances safety. Before a charter flight is released, LevelFlight verifies, among other items, that pilot duty times and crew rest requirements are met, pilot training is current, and the Air Operator Certificate (AOC) is valid.

Using qualitative and quantitative data collection tools, LevelFlight draws information from across multiple platforms and programs to create an enhanced level of situational awareness that is otherwise unavailable in the charter industry. Instead of pulling older information from FAA and insurance databases, LevelFlight uses data collection in real time from a wide range of sources to create objective and accurate flight reports.

While other companies offer compliance checks, LevelFlight is the only safety standard that verifies flight data against both US and global regulations from:

• US Federal Aviation Administration
• European Aviation and Space Agency (EASA)
• Transport Canada
• International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)

LevelFlight provides the highest quality information available to aircraft charter companies, charter brokers, and passengers.

Real-time Flight Auditing Provides Customer Peace of Mind

A signature feature of LevelFlight is the Automated Risk Assessment (ARA) system, which reviews all data associated with a private charter and provides an objective safety score based on multiple facets of the flight and crew. For example, the ARA system will detect when a crew member has been flying extensively and could be at risk for fatigue – and considers this information in the ARA report.

The score enables Global Air Charters to proactively review operations for each flight and make adjustments to enhance safety, and it provides an auditing tool that gives you -– the private jet charter customer -– peace of mind. Upon request, we will share a charter flight ARA score with you and explain the meaning.

In addition to verifying that the aircraft and charter operator are legal and insured,* the score addresses several ancillary factors that are known to contribute to accidents and incidents, including:

• Weather conditions: The ARA looks at airport weather forecasts at the estimated arrival and departure times
• Runway length and other airport factors
• PIC’s FRAT score: A subjective measure, the Flight Risk Assessment Tool is a series of questions that the pilot in command asks him or herself before each flight. This score feeds into the LevelFlight ARA system.
• Crew rest, estimated duty day, and training currency
• Crew experience: Each pilot's total flight time and, more importantly, quality of flight time, are considered. The score evaluates:
-Flight time in multi-crew environments
-International flight time
-Experience in the critical phases of flight
-Experience in high-density environments
-Turbine experience
-Total time in type

Additionally, the ARA addresses items such as:
• Recent crew training events
• Experience being paired together
• Experience operating into and out of the planned departure, destination, and alternate airports
• Recency of experience.
• Currency of crew training, medicals, and certificates

One of the biggest enhancements over other third-party auditing systems is that data is constantly updated in real time. An ARA score is leg-based, not trip based. In the case of a four-leg trip, what happens on Legs One and Two impacts the ARA score for Leg Three. These updates happen in real time and can be presented to the client as needed. No other system can offer data that current.

Furthermore, the ARA has a verification process that allows the end user (private jet charter broker or client) to physically verify that the ARA presented has not been tampered with or manipulated (i.e., editing a PDF with Adobe to change flight times).

*The ARA system verifies that the charter plane in the flight release is on the aircraft charter company’s current FAA Operation Specifications (DO85), that the company has a valid Air Operator Certificate (AOC), and that aircraft and aircraft operator’s insurance are current. These three items are accomplished by pulling data from the operator AND pulling the DOT form 4507 from public records.

Global Air Charters is a member of the Fly Compliant Safety Board, comprised of aviation and regulatory professionals who together analyze identified risks in charter aviation. Safety-related data are assessed and aggregated for use in the ARA System to continually improve the LevelFlight Safety Management System for aircraft charter companies.