Do I need to be on time for my private jet departure?

Private jets turn a travel day into one of the most comfortable and convenient experiences you can have. Between driving up to the aircraft, to landing at an airport as close to your final destination as possible, there are a lot of ways that it makes commercial travel look even more cumbersome and taxing. During the process of booking your jet charter, you will provide your desired arrival or departure time that aligns with your schedule for the trip. This information is passed along to the operator of the aircraft and everyone from crew, to your car transfer, to your family or business colleagues will know the schedule. However, with the flexibility experienced with private travel, we are often left to consider how flexible the departure time can be. Perhaps traffic is heavy on your way tot he airport. Perhaps a schedule of a friend or family member has changed. Or perhaps you just desire to sleep in a bit later. All of these are reasonable and reason enough to attempt to adjust the timing, but there are some factors to consider before assuming. First, crew members are limited to their assigned time to safely operate the aircraft without a lack of sleep. If a crew member was expected to depart at 6:00AM and then pushes the flight until later in the day, he already started his duty time and may not have the remaining time to legally finish the trip before landing. Second, if traveling internationally you must go through customs at airports. At the heavier traveled locations like Los Angeles (Van Nuys, LAX), you are assigned a slot to arrive in that mirrors your trip itinerary. If you push the schedule too late or want to arrive before, you may lose your slot and no longer be able to arrive at that airport. Lastly, changes that occur later on in the planning process create the opportunity for a car transfer to not be updated properly, catering to be delayed or have sat for a long period, and generally create more variables that may reduce the premium experience slightly. At the Private Jet Consultants, we pride ourselves on focusing on the clients needs and accommodating as well as we possibly can. We will creatively solve problems, manage the operator and quarterback the entire process to maintain an excellent flight, with or without some unexpected changes. Our suggestion to mitigate any issues is to over communicate throughout the planning process.