Crew for a private aircraft: your own staff or the operator's

The question comes up immediately after the deal and is settled once for several years. Changing the arrangement midway is expensive: people leave, type ratings lapse, and bringing in new ones takes months.

Here are both arrangements, by money, by timescale and by risk.

What "crew" actually covers

For a heavy business jet it is two pilots and a cabin attendant on every flight. One set of people covers a limited number of hours: duty time and rest time are regulated, and if the aircraft has flown more than 400 hours in the year, one set is no longer enough.

Add simulator training twice a year, medical examinations, the maintenance of ratings, and leave. Crew is a fixed cost, and it runs in the months when the aircraft stands in the hangar.

Arrangement one: in-house staff

The pilots are employed by the owner directly or through the owner's own management company.

What you get:

▪️ The people know the aircraft and they know you. Preferences on routes, on loading, on scheduling are taken into account without being explained each time.

▪️ Readiness to depart is set by your plans. There is no coordination with somebody else's schedule.

▪️ The line-up is constant. Having the same people on board is a matter of trust and a matter of confidentiality alike.

What you take on:

▪️ The payroll runs the year round. At a hundred hours flown, the crew cost per flying hour comes out high.

▪️ Training, ratings, medicals and the rest schedule are your responsibility and your budget.

▪️ Cover for illness or resignation. A pilot rated on a specific type takes weeks to find and months to bring in.

▪️ The personnel work itself: contracts, insurance, monitoring of qualifications.

Arrangement two: the operator's crew

The aircraft is placed under the management of an aviation company, which provides the crew.

What you get:

▪️ Payment is tied to use. When the aircraft stands, the cost of people is lower.

▪️ A relief crew always exists. Illness or leave is covered from inside the company.

▪️ Training, ratings and monitoring of qualifications are the operator's task.

▪️ Where the aircraft is operated commercially, this is the only arrangement that works.

What you give up:

▪️ Readiness to depart depends on the operator's schedule. Short-notice legs are agreed in advance.

▪️ The crew line-up changes. New people on board each time.

▪️ For an owner who flies a lot, the cost per hour comes out above in-house staff.

Where the line falls in money terms

The calculation is simple. Take the annual cost of an in-house crew with all the associated expenses and divide it by actual annual hours. Compare that with the operator's rate for an hour of its crew's work.

On the heavy class the break-even usually falls at 250–350 hours a year. Below that band the operator is cheaper, above it in-house staff are. The figure shifts with the region of basing and with salary levels in the market.

I am a current operator, I run an airline, and I see this arithmetic from the inside. A business-aviation pilot's salary is fixed: it arrives the same in a busy month and in a month when the aircraft has stood in the hangar. In business aviation the crew is usually attached to one particular aircraft and one particular client, and that too keeps the annual fund predictable — the cost per hour is set by how much you actually fly. Look separately at the take-off weight: above a certain threshold the aircraft requires an airline operator under a management agreement, and the choice then narrows to whose crew works inside that arrangement.

The second parameter is predictability of the schedule. An owner who departs on a decision taken the previous evening pays for an in-house crew and gets readiness for that money. An owner working to a plan a month ahead covers the same task through an operator.

The hybrid arrangement

It often works like this: the commander is yours, the first officer and the cabin attendant come from the operator. A constant person on board is preserved and the variable part of the cost stays flexible.

The arrangement requires the operator to agree to take your commander onto its own staff under contract. That is discussed before the management agreement is signed, because afterwards it is discussed from a weaker position.

What to settle before the deal

1. Calculate actual annual hours across the routes you genuinely fly.
2. Establish the market rates for pilots rated on your type in your region.
3. Ask two or three operators for terms on management and on crew provision.
4. Check how many people in the country hold a current rating on that type. On rare types the answer sometimes changes the choice of aircraft.
5. Allow three to four months to bring in an in-house crew: selection, training, ratings.

The two figures that decide it are your own annual hours and the rate for a pilot rated on your type in your region. Both are obtainable before the purchase, and both belong in the calculation from the start, alongside the price of the aircraft.

Alexander Filimonov — business aviation: sourcing, acquisition and entry into service of aircraft.

We work out the crew cost from your annual hours and set up the operating arrangement together with the type of aircraft: https://grok.flights/go/tc-ekipazh