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LET'S LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF AIR CHARTER

ACMI, AOG, EMPTY LEGS… WHAT DO THEY MEAN EXACTLY?

In the field of charter private planes and more generally in that of aviation, numerous expressions are used to indicate specific situations. If you are not an expert in this field, sometimes it can be difficult to understand the exact meaning of these acronyms or expressions, which serves for the correct understanding of the contractual terms in case of jets or charter flights.

That Aviation Italia compiled for you a glossary of the terminologies most commonly used in commercial aircraft and private aircraft.

 

ACMI
The acronym indicates the distribution of costs responsibility to be incurred for chartering an airplane (on-board personnel, aircraft maintenance, etc.) and insurance responsibilities.

AOG
It is the acronym of Aircraft On Ground and this abbreviation is used to indicate an aircraft forced to land due to a technical fault.

AIR SIDE
It is the area of an airport beyond check-in, which includes the departure area of the gates, taxiways, aircraft parking areas, and luggage claim room.

ATA/ATD or ETA/ETD
Respectively: Actual time of arrival and Actual time of departure. While ETA and ETD indicate estimated Time of arrival and time of departure.

BBJ
Means Boeing Business Jet and identifies Boeing aircrafts that combine the luxury of a business jet with the space of a larger commercial aircraft, such as Boeing B737-400. It is an airplane which is being entirely used for business class.

PAYLOAD
It is the carrying capacity of an airplane and includes both the number of passengers and the luggage and/or any goods on board and in the hold.

DE-ICING
It consists in the removal of ice and snow from the aircraft and, when necessary, may incur an additional charge. However, when required, it is mandatory for the safety of the flight itself. It is not always predictable.

TRAFFIC RIGHTS
Depending on the country of origin, some Airline Companies require authorization for access, transit or overflight of various countries. The EU provides free movement, but all of the charter flights, business flights and scheduled flights are subject to traffic rights. For example, if we wanted to fly from Milan to St. Petersburg (therefore outside the EU) we would have to request traffic rights for all countries included in the flight route that are not part of the European Union.

DOUBLE ROTATION
It occurs when the route of a flight section foresees the transportation of passengers to the destination, then the return of the aircraft to its base and subsequently its return to the passengers’ destination airport to take them back to the airport of their original departure. It becomes an obligatory choice when the costs of keeping the aircraft out of its base are greater than the expenses of making two “empty” flights.

EMPTY LEGS
It is the definition of an “empty flight”, i.e. without passengers. For example, the return flight of an air charter in order to be repositioned for the next charter flight or to return to its service base.

FBO
An FBO is a fixed base operator, responsible for providing various ground services such as aircraft maintenance, catering, refuelling (see our previous article ).

GAT
It is the acronym of General Aviation Terminal, meaning the Terminal of an airport dedicated to private flights.

PRIVATE JET
A private jet is an aircraft purchased by an individual, a society or an airline company for private flights.

LARGE BUSINESS JET
It is the definition used for the aircraft which is able to accommodate 8/14 passengers with a flight autonomy of up to 8 hours. Like the Embraer Legacy 650 and the Dassault Falcon 2000.

LIGHT JET
Are all of the aircraft with the accommodating capacity from 5 to 8 passengers and flight autonomy up to 3 hours and thirty minutes, such as Cessna Citation Mustang or CJ3.

LONG RANGE BUSINESS JET
It is the classification of all those aircrafts with autonomy up to 13 hours of flight which can accommodate up to 10 passengers, such as the Global jet 6000 Bombardier.

MIDSIZE JET
Are those jets which able to fly continuously for 5 hours and a half, with capacity from 7 to 9 people.

NAUTICAL MILE
It is the unit of measurement used both in Aviation and in Navy and corresponds to 1,852 meters (about 250 meters more than the standard mile).

FLIGHT PLAN
It is the document that contains the details and specifications of the route to be made. Like the airport of departure and arrival, flight duration, the number of passengers, etc. It is drawn up by the local Aviation authorities, by a pilot or by a flight controller so that the information can be shared with the Control Tower and other relevant parties.

PAX
It is the abbreviation used to define passengers.

STOPOVER
The airport is an intermediate stop – a few hours or a whole night – between the airport of departure and the final destination. For the air charter, there are never stopovers unless they are explicitly requested by the customer (for example if passengers are embarked from two different airports for a single final destination) or in the case of a long flight that requires a stop for re-fuel (in this case the stop is no longer than 45/60 minutes).

SLOT and SLOT ATC
The SLOT is the authorization to use the runway for a specified period of time – 15 minutes – which allows take-off or landing.
In the case of SLOT ATC, it is an “inconvenience” and consists in the delay of the departure time of an aircraft, established by the Air Traffic Control when necessary for traffic management reasons. Unfortunately, it is not predictable but, usually, they are rather contained delays and, where possible, the delay is achieved in flight.

FUEL SUPPLEMENT
It is a tax that is added to the cost of a charter flight to compensate the increase in fuel prices. That Aviation Italia always declares that the fuel supplement is already calculated in the quote phase.

TAXI TIME
The taxi time is the time that passes between the aircraft movement from its parking position to take-off.

SERVICE TIME
It corresponds to the hours of service of the crew members, including the hours out of flight time. Since the service time is subject to very specific limitations by FAA and EASA the Airline Companies are required to plan their crews well because based on the availability of the crew the Charter private plane Companies can give or not the availability of their own plane.

ROUTE
It is the term used to define the segment of a flight, between the starting position and the airport of the arrival.

UTC
It is the acronym to indicate universal coordinated time and uses as a reference the time zone of Greenwich.

WIDE BODY
It is the term commonly used to define a double-aisle plane (as opposed to those with a single corridor, defined Narrow Body). These are all those aircraft with seats on the left, a corridor, a series of central seats, and a corridor and seats on the right. We are talking about aircraft such as the Airbus A380 or the Boeing B777-200.

 

That Aviation Italia: Quality air charter broker.

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