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What happens when the aircraft doesn't.

Two in five charter customers had a flight disrupted in the last twelve months, and the ones it happened to are markedly more likely to change provider than the ones it didn't. What decides that is not whether anything went wrong — it is whether the answer was already written down. So here is ours, before you need it.

First, who owes you what

We are the broker. The operator is the carrier.

This is the one distinction everything else on this page depends on, and most brokers leave it buried in a clause. We arrange the flight, hold the money, and stay on the phone. The aircraft, the crew and the certificate belong to the operating carrier — whose name is on your Flight Order before you pay, not after.

What we do

Source the aircraft, disclose the operator, hold the contract, chase the alternative, administer the refund, and stay the single number you call. We do not disappear to the operator when it gets difficult — that is the whole reason a broker exists.

What only the operator can do

Decide whether the aircraft flies. Change the routing, make an intermediate landing, divert, or cancel. Those are operational decisions under the carrier's own certificate, and we cannot override them. Nor can we overrule the captain, whose authority on safety is final.

One consequence worth stating plainly: flight times are estimates unless the operator has expressly guaranteed them. Anyone who promises you a guaranteed departure without naming the operator who guaranteed it is promising something they do not own.

If you cancel

The scale, published.

Almost nobody in this trade publishes their cancellation scale. It arrives with the contract, after the decision has been made. Here is ours, so you can price the risk before you commit rather than after.

Notice before departureWhat happensCharge
More than 7 daysThe aircraft can usually be resold into another trip, so the loss is the sourcing, not the flight.25%
7 days to 48 hoursCrew and slots are committed; the day is harder to fill.50%
48 to 24 hoursThe aircraft's day is effectively gone.75%
Within 24 hours, or a no-showA no-show means nobody has presented within sixty minutes of the reporting time and nobody has called.100%

Four things that decide which line you are on. A day means twenty-four hours, not a date. Where a positioning flight is needed on an earlier day, that earlier day is your departure date — this is the one that surprises people, and it can move you a whole band. The clock stops when we receive your written notice, not when you send it. And empty legs and one-way charters are non-refundable once confirmed, because there is no second trip to resell them into.

This scale applies where your Flight Order states none. Where the operator's own scale is stricter, and was disclosed to you before booking, theirs applies — and it is on the Flight Order, in front of you, before you pay. What we will not do is invent a booking-specific condition after the agreement is binding.

If the aircraft breaks

A substitute has to be a real substitute.

An aircraft goes technical the night before. This is the ordinary case, not the rare one, and it is where the difference between providers actually shows.

What starts immediately

The operator is obliged to use commercially reasonable efforts to find a substitute aircraft or reschedule. We work the market in parallel rather than waiting to be told — the two searches are not the same search, and yours is the one we are running.

What a substitute must be

Legally capable of performing your flight, and reasonably suitable for the agreed mission. Not merely airworthy, and not merely available. A light jet is not a substitute for a route that needs the range, however quickly it can be there.

Who pays the difference

If the replacement costs more, you hear the number before you are responsible for it, not on the invoice afterwards. If it costs less, the lower figure is the one you are quoted. Either way it is disclosed while you can still say no.

And the honest limit: we do not guarantee that a replacement will be available. On a Friday in August, into a slot-constrained airport, sometimes there is no aircraft at any price. Any broker who guarantees otherwise is guaranteeing something they cannot see — the fleet is not theirs and neither is the weather.

The one that costs us money

We do not keep our fee on a flight that did not happen.

Operator failure, flight not performed

Our fee · not retained

Where a flight is cancelled because the operator failed and no acceptable replacement can reasonably be arranged, we do not retain a brokerage fee relating solely to that unperformed flight. The single exception is a separate sourcing or professional service fee that was clearly disclosed to you before booking — and if one applies to your trip, it is on the Flight Order, named.

What we can and cannot return

Refund · administered, not owed

We administer the refund; we are not the carrier who holds the fare. What comes back is set by the Flight Order, the operator's conditions, what is actually recoverable from the operator and third parties, and mandatory law — which overrides all three where it gives you more. We would rather tell you that now than have you discover the word "administer" in a dispute.

If the operator or the aircraft changes

You hear it from us, with the alternative already in hand.

Operators change aircraft for operational, technical and safety reasons, and occasionally the operator itself changes after booking. Neither is unusual. What matters is the order things reach you in.

Told as soon as it is real

We inform you of a material operator or aircraft change as soon as reasonably practicable — and we bring you the alternative before anything moves. A message that says only "your aircraft has changed" is a message that should have waited ten minutes.

The new operator, named

If the operator itself changes, you get the identity of the replacement operator and any material change in commercial or operational terms. The carrier you are flying with is never a detail you have to ask for.

Your right to refuse

Where applicable law gives you a right to reject such a change and obtain a refund, we honour it. We do not read that right narrowly, and we do not make you find it yourself.

Weather, airspace, and the rest

Some things nobody owns.

Neither we nor the operator is responsible for delay or non-performance caused by circumstances beyond reasonable control: weather, air traffic control, airport restrictions, government or regulatory action, security requirements, industrial action, acts of war or terrorism. That list is not a way of ending the conversation — it is the boundary of what a commercial promise can honestly cover.

Two things it does not do. It does not remove any refund or passenger right that is mandatory under applicable law. And it does not excuse us from the work: a closed airport is not our fault, and finding you the alternative is still our job.

The limits, stated once

What we do not promise.

We do not guarantee a replacement

Reasonable commercial efforts, every time. A guarantee, never — because the aircraft are not ours.

We do not verify your documents

Passports, visas and entry requirements are yours to hold. We will tell you what a destination requires and when it must be done by; we do not certify that what you are carrying satisfies it, and denied entry on paperwork is not something we can undo.

Baggage claims go to the carrier

Baggage is carried on the operator's conditions and under applicable law, and a baggage claim is made against the operator. We will hand you the right address and the right reference; we are not the party who can settle it.

None of these limits is unusual in this industry. What is unusual is printing them on a page a customer can find before they book, rather than on a page they find afterwards.

Rights that outrank this page

Where the law gives you more, the law wins.

Everything above is contractual, and contract sits underneath mandatory law rather than on top of it. Nothing on this page, in our Terms of Business or in the Charter Agreement limits a right you hold under applicable law. Four regimes decide what you actually have, and we would rather set them out — including the one question that is genuinely unsettled — than let you find out afterwards.

RegimeReaches a charter?What it gives, and who owes it
Montreal Convention 1999YesThe test is carriage for reward between two States Parties — there is no scheduled-versus-charter distinction in the text. The carrier is liable for damage caused by delay unless it proves it took every measure reasonably required. Limits in force since 28 December 2024: delay 6,303 SDR per passenger, baggage 1,519 SDR, and the first 151,880 SDR of a death or injury claim is strict liability the carrier cannot exclude. The SDR is a floating basket revalued daily, so treat any currency conversion as indicative. Cancellation is not a Montreal head of liability — a flight that never happens is a contract claim, not a Convention one.
Türkiye — SHY-YOLCUYesThe Turkish passenger rights regulation covers scheduled and non-scheduled flights alike, so a charter is inside it, and unlike the European rule it also covers passengers travelling free or on a fare not offered to the public. Compensation from the operating carrier: €100 domestic; €250 / €400 / €600 international by distance, halved where you are re-routed within the stated window, converted to lira at the central bank's selling rate on the day of payment. A waiver written into a charter contract is void. The duty is the operator's, not ours — we name the operator and take the claim to them.
EU 261/2004 and UK261UnsettledNeither regulation excludes private charter, and both were written to cover non-scheduled flights — but no court and no regulator has ever tested them on a business jet, and we will not tell you in either direction. What can be said with confidence: helicopter charter is definitively outside both, they cannot be waived by contract, any right belongs to each passenger personally rather than to whoever paid for the aircraft, and the claim is made against the operating carrier. Compensation, if it applies, is €250/€400/€600 or £220/£350/£520 by distance.
Türkiye — Law 6502Depends on youAn individual chartering privately is a consumer. A company is not, even for a trip with no business purpose, because a trading company has no non-commercial sphere — its disputes go to the commercial court. For a consumer: passenger transport is carved out of the distance-contracts regulation, so there is no fourteen-day right of withdrawal; the tüketici hakem heyeti is compulsory below 186,000 TL for 2026 and barred above it, where the consumer court takes over; and you may sue where you live.

One rule in our own favour that is worth knowing anyway: under Article 119 of the Turkish Civil Aviation Act a charter contract is not valid unless it is made in writing. A confirmation by message is not a contract, however clear it reads. That is why we ask for a signature on a Flight Order even when the trip is tomorrow.

For bookings contracted by our Türkiye-established entity, the agreement is governed by Turkish law, with the Istanbul courts holding non-exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, that clause does not touch the rights in the last row above, and no arbitration clause applies to you.

This page is a plain-language summary of Sections 10 to 13 and 22 to 23 of the Terms of Business, read alongside the Charter Agreement. Figures checked against their primary texts on 14 September 2026 and due for review when the 2026 European amending regulation is published, which will place disclosure and complaint duties directly on intermediaries like us. Where a word here and a word there differ, the contract governs — and if you find a place where they genuinely disagree, tell us and we will fix the page.

While it is happening

One number, and it is the same one.

The number you were quoted on is the number you call at two in the morning when the aircraft is technical. Not a general line, not a ticket, and not a handover to the operator. Whatever happens operationally, we remain your single point of coordination — which is the part of this page that is a promise rather than a disclosure.

+90 532 492 00 91 go@aeroinis.com