ARGUS, Wyvern and IS-BAO ratings

Almost every private jet broker says its aircraft are flown by “safety-rated” operators. Almost no one explains what the rating is. This article does: what ARGUS, Wyvern and IS-BAO each audit, what the levels mean, and the questions that turn a claim into something you can check.

One caution first. These are private programmes. The law is the FAA certificate, and the ratings are what operators choose to add on top of it. We rely on them heavily, and we also know what they do not say.

The short version

• The baseline is not a rating. A charter operator in the United States flies under a Part 135 air carrier certificate and operations specifications from the FAA, and holds economic authority from the Department of Transportation. Brokers may not arrange flights by an operator without both (14 CFR 295.20).
• ARGUS rates the operator, from a remote audit (Gold) to continuous monitoring after repeated on-site audits (Platinum Elite).
• Wyvern runs its own programmes (Registered, Flight Leader, Wingman, Wingman PRO) and also audits brokers.
• IS-BAO is a safety-management standard from the International Business Aviation Council. It is valuable, but it is not graded like a charter rating.
• Ask for the date and the carrier’s name. A rating is a snapshot of one operator on one date, not a statement about a tail number.

What is under all of them

Before a rating means anything, the operator has to be legal. For a US charter that means:

• an FAA Part 135 certificate with operations specifications that list the aircraft and the kinds of flying it may do;
• DOT economic authority to sell charter flights;
• operational control: the carrier decides which flights are flown, with which crew and aircraft (14 CFR 1.1). A broker does not and cannot, and must say so in its advertising (14 CFR 295.23).

A rating is useful because it checks things the certificate leaves to the operator: how it manages safety day to day, how it trains and checks its pilots, and how it maintains aircraft beyond the minimum.

ARGUS

ARGUS International’s current audit products are Gold, Gold Certified, Platinum and Platinum Elite. The differences are in how the operator is examined and how often.

Rating	How it is audited	What ARGUS says it validates
Gold	A remote audit	The operator’s safety management system and maintenance practices
Gold Certified	Adds a “rigorous onsite audit component”, sitting “between our Gold and Platinum levels”	Maintenance programmes and pilot training, as well as safety systems and operational controls
Platinum	“An intensive, two-day on-site examination” by ARGUS auditors	Training, maintenance, standard operating procedures and organisational controls, with a mature, actively used safety management system
Platinum Elite	Continuous monitoring after at least two consecutive Platinum audits with no significant findings	Maintenance and operations reviews every six months, with a company-wide review every two years

Two points follow from that table.

Gold and Gold Certified are not the same thing. Gold relies on a remote audit; Gold Certified adds an on-site visit. A broker who says “ARGUS rated” without the tier has told you very little.

Platinum Elite is about time, not just a better audit. It is a continuous programme with six-monthly reviews, and it requires a clean record over two Platinum cycles.

ARGUS publishes an Operator Registry and a Broker Registry. Their pages do not explain how a charterer should use them, so the practical step is to ask the broker for the carrier’s registry entry or an ARGUS certificate with a date, and to confirm it with ARGUS if there is any doubt. We could not find a rating called “Gold Plus” on ARGUS’s current product list; if you are quoted one, ask for the certificate.

Wyvern

Wyvern runs its programmes through a directory of operators and a set of audits. Its main operator programmes are:

• Registered Operator. Operators voluntarily share safety management system and emergency response plan information through Wyvern’s compliance system. Wyvern’s materials describe this as a data-sharing network, not as an audit.
• Flight Leader. A coaching programme: Wyvern’s materials describe structured quarterly coaching and ongoing performance monitoring of operators.
• Wingman. The audit tier. Wyvern says a Wingman operator audit looks at “flight operations, safety management systems (SMS), training, maintenance, and organizational controls”.
• Wingman PRO. A Wingman operator is moved up when Wyvern’s assessment of its safety culture “reveals a healthy and generative culture” and its safety management system is “fully effective”, in “the continual monitoring and improvement phase”.

Wyvern also audits other parts of the industry. A Wingman Broker audit looks at “due diligence processes, operator vetting, risk management practices, and duty of care”, and a Mission Audit is a trip-specific report on a charter operator covering its pilots, maintenance, history, safety management system and the airports involved. It has public directories of Registered, Wingman and Wingman PRO operators, which makes it the easier of the two to check yourself.

What Wyvern’s public pages do not state is how often each tier is audited or whether each audit is on site; ask Wyvern or the operator.

IS-BAO

The International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations is published by the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC), a non-profit. IBAC launched it in 2002 and describes it as “the only ICAO-recognized industry standards program” developed specifically for business aviation.

Where ARGUS and Wyvern grade charter operators, IS-BAO is a standard for any business aircraft operator, from a single domestic aircraft to an intercontinental fleet. It is built around safety management, and it progresses in three stages:

1. Stage 1: the safety management infrastructure is established.
2. Stage 2: “safety risks are being effectively managed”.
3. Stage 3: safety management is “fully integrated into the operator’s business” and a positive safety culture is sustained.

IS-BAO is “performance-based”. It does not dictate how an operator meets the standard, and it leaves most operational and technical choices to the operator. IBAC’s public pages do not publish audit frequency, and we could not find a public registry of IS-BAO operators on its website, so the way to confirm it is to ask the operator for its current registration certificate and stage.

A related audit worth knowing: the Air Charter Safety Foundation’s Industry Audit Standard (ACSF IAS), which Wyvern’s pages describe as helping Part 135 and Part 91 operators “demonstrate safety beyond regulatory compliance”.

What a rating cannot tell you

• It does not cover a tail number. An audit assesses an operator’s systems and people. It does not inspect your particular aircraft on your particular morning.
• It is a snapshot. Ratings carry dates. Ask for the date, and for what happened since.
• It does not replace the pilot’s judgment. A rated operator can still have a bad day. The pilot in command’s authority under 14 CFR 91.3 is the final safeguard, and a rated operator is more likely to respect it.
• It is not regulation. No rating replaces the FAA certificate, and the FAA does not issue or endorse these ratings.
• The names are not interchangeable. “Gold” at ARGUS, “Wingman” at Wyvern and “Stage 2” at IS-BAO measure different things.

How a broker may talk about ratings

The Department of Transportation treats misleading safety claims as an unfair practice. 14 CFR 295.50(b) lists as unfair or deceptive the misrepresentation of pilot or aircraft safety, qualifications or certification, and representing that the carrier on a particular flight meets a standard set by an auditing organisation when it does not. That second point is the one that matters: a rating must be true of the carrier that will fly you, not of a carrier the broker used last month.

How to verify an operator in five questions

1. Who is the carrier? Part 295.24 requires the broker to tell you the corporate name of the direct air carrier before you contract for a flight. If the answer is vague, stop there.
2. What is its rating, at which tier and on what date? “ARGUS rated” is incomplete; “ARGUS Platinum, audited this spring” is checkable.
3. Is it in the registry? Look the carrier up in the ARGUS Operator Registry or the Wyvern directories, or ask for a copy of the certificate.
4. Does the carrier hold the FAA and DOT authority? Ask the broker to confirm it holds a Part 135 certificate and the DOT economic authority, as Part 295.20 requires of it.
5. What if it changes? If the aircraft or carrier changes, the broker owes you the new carrier’s name and the same checks. We cover how that works in what happens when the plane breaks.

A rating will not catch a switched aircraft, a padded invoice or an empty leg that was never confirmed. How to spot a charter scam covers those.

What Jake does

Jake works with carriers rated ARGUS Gold or Platinum. For each trip, he checks that the rating applies to the carrier that will fly it, not only to the company name, and he tells you the carrier’s name before you commit. If the carrier is replaced, the check is repeated for the replacement. He will also tell you when a carrier is a tier lower than you would like, and what that means for the trip, rather than leaving it out.

To see how a trip would be flown, call +1 (862) 485-3510 or request a quote and ask for the carrier’s name and rating with the price. The route guides, such as Teterboro to Aspen, show what a typical trip involves.

For the accident data behind the question of whether charter is safer, see is flying private safer than commercial? and private jet accident statistics. To check an operator’s FAA certificate yourself, see Part 91 vs Part 135.

Sources

• ARGUS International: Gold Certified
• ARGUS International: Platinum audit
• ARGUS International: Platinum Elite
• ARGUS International: Operator Registry and Broker Registry
• Wyvern: audits and assessments
• Wyvern: public directories of Registered, Wingman and Wingman PRO operators
• International Business Aviation Council: IS-BAO
• 14 CFR Part 295, Air charter brokers, including 295.20, 295.23, 295.24 and 295.50 (eCFR, Title 14)
• 14 CFR 91.3, Responsibility and authority of the pilot in command (eCFR, Title 14)