As the financial community has been shaken by the downfall of Enron and Worldcom, so has the aviation charter industry been rattled by the demise of one of its stalwart brokerage firms. When online charter broker Flight Time surprised the industry by closing its portal on June 28 and declaring Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company apparently left some aircraft charter operators out of the money. Flight Time started as a charter broker in 1985 and later added online charter reservations.
Business Jet Services, the charter arm of FBO Business Jet Center at Dallas Love Field (DAL), received the surprise bankruptcy announcement and was told by its legal staff that there was probably little chance it could recover the money owed by Flight Time for flights already flown. Ashley Vacca, Business Jet Services flight operations and marketing manager, said her division took a double hit, since Flight Time had negotiated lower hourly charter rates based on a guarantee of 300 hr of charter business. Not only did Flight Time not make the 300 hr, but $55,000 in charter billing was unpaid at the time of the bankruptcy filing. Vacca said the incident has shaken Business Jet’s confidence in the entire charter-broker industry–particularly online brokers. She said, “It’s a disincentive for us to negotiate discounts or other arrangements if a well-respected, high-profile company like Flight Time can disappear like this without notice.”
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