Private aviation websites: turning flight requests into bookings

A race against the clock

In business aviation, most flights are decided at very short notice. According to data published by Avinode in 2016, 19% of trips are booked on the day of departure and 20% the day before; 80% are quoted within the 48 hours before departure, and an operator who replies after 48 hours finds 80% of these trips already booked.

Speed is rewarded, too. According to figures Avinode published in late 2015, 55.3% of requests sent in Europe the previous year received a reply within thirty minutes. The company estimated that operators who consistently replied within that time, even to decline, received on average three times as many requests over the following twelve months. In 2025, it still awarded its “Power Seller” badge to operators who consistently reply within its recommended 45 minutes.

Take a Friday evening, 7.40 pm. An executive assistant, on her phone, requests a flight from Nice to London for 9 am the next day, for four passengers. One provider sends a polished quote at 8 am on Saturday: too late. Another replies within twenty-five minutes, and the client takes off with them at 9 am.

The first loss often happens before the quote is even written. An operator can receive hundreds of requests a day, mostly by email, and only a small share become flights. A genuine request arriving at 11 pm among a hundred others may well wait until the next morning. The website’s job is to make it stand out: complete, checked, and flagged at once to the right person.

A complete request from the very first message

A form that is too long drives a busy client away, especially on a phone. Too short, and you have to call back to learn that there is a return flight the next day, seven passengers and two dogs. The right balance: what you need to quote, straight away; the rest, once the quote is accepted.

Clients type “Cannes” or “Monaco”, not an airport code. The field should suggest the right airports and heliports: Nice Côte d’Azur (LFMN), Cannes-Mandelieu (LFMD) or the Monaco heliport (LNMC), where every flight requires prior permission. And the time entered must be the local time at departure, shown as such: a return from Dubai “at 6 pm” is not a 6 pm departure, Paris time.

That leaves telling real clients from bots. There is no need to make everyone pass a test: an invisible field that only bots fill in, and a check on how long the form takes to complete, stop most automated submissions. Be careful with CAPTCHAs, those tests that ask you to tick a box or pick out images: according to the CNIL, the French data protection authority, a CAPTCHA whose provider reuses the data for its own purposes requires the visitor’s consent. And if the visitor refuses, it no longer protects anything. The CNIL cites Google’s reCAPTCHA as an example, but its terms changed in April 2026: read your provider’s terms before choosing.

A quote that spells everything out, taxes included

Being first is not enough: the quote also has to be clear. The guidelines published in 2020 by the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) and the Air Charter Association, the UK-based trade body for air charter, ask that a quote state at least its period of validity, its conditions (including aircraft availability and the owner’s approval), the services that may be charged on top, and any technical stops.

The price of a private flight often comes as a surprise because of positioning, meaning the empty leg that brings the aircraft to the departure airport, then takes it back to base. A one-way trip therefore does not cost half a return trip. Better to say so in the quote than to explain it afterwards.

In France, the solidarity tax on air tickets has had a specific rate for business aviation since 1 March 2025. It is due for every passenger boarding in France: in 2026, €420 for a jet flight to a European destination, and up to €2,100 for a long-haul destination. Take a light jet flight from Nice to Paris-Le Bourget for five passengers: 5 × €420, or €2,100 in tax. A quote that leaves it out looks cheaper, then disappoints.

Prices displayed online remain estimates. The firm price depends on the aircraft’s actual availability and, often, on its owner’s approval. A teaser price contradicted by the quote does more harm than no price at all: if you display estimates, present them as such, and say what they depend on.

Who operates the flight: the question discerning clients ask

In France, carrying passengers for payment requires an operating licence and an air operator certificate (AOC). Without them, the flight is illegal, and the French civil aviation authority (DGAC) warns that safety is not guaranteed and that, in the event of an accident, passengers will probably not be covered. Family offices and travel managers know this, and ask before signing. Your website can answer before the question is even asked:

• A “Who operates your flights” page: the operators you work with, or your own fleet, with their AOC numbers and their insurance. The DGAC publishes the list of French certificate holders; an operator based outside the EU, such as an American one, also needs an authorisation from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for commercial flights to, from or within the EU.
• Independent audits, where there are any: ARGUS, Wyvern or IS-BAO, with a link to the public register when one exists.
• Your role, stated clearly: broker or operator. For flights to, from or within the United States, it is a legal requirement: since 2019, US rules have required brokers to state clearly in their advertising that they are brokers, not air carriers.
• Passports kept safe: for an international flight, the operator needs the passengers’ identities. These documents have no place in a shared inbox: a secure area to upload them, restricted access and a defined retention period, as required by the GDPR and, in Monaco, by Law No. 1.565 of 3 December 2024 on data protection.

The bank transfer: the riskiest moment

A private flight is usually paid in full, by bank transfer, before departure. Sums like these attract a simple scam: a fake email, sent from a domain name almost identical to yours, with new bank details.

Take a flight from Nice to Mykonos. Forty-eight hours before departure, the client receives an “updated invoice”: your logo, your tone, but an address ending in .co instead of .com, and new bank details. If they pay, the money is lost, and so is their trust. The defence comes down to three measures:

• Bank details that never change by email, and clients who have been told so.
• A protected domain name, so that your clients’ email providers reject fake emails sent from your exact address (against a lookalike address such as that .co, the other two measures are what protect you).
• A call back to the number you already know whenever in doubt, never to the one on the suspicious message. This is the advice of both the Air Charter Association and the CNIL.

Empty legs and helicopters: two separate products

An empty leg is a flight the aircraft has to make anyway, resold at a lower price. But it depends on the flight that created it: if that flight changes or is cancelled, the empty leg disappears. A list typed into the website by hand therefore goes stale quickly, and a client who calls about a flight that no longer exists concludes that the website cannot be trusted. The only good list is one that updates itself: Avinode, for instance, requires brokers who display its empty legs to pass on every change promptly, and to remove those no longer offered.

The helicopter between Nice airport and Monaco works differently. The flight takes about seven minutes, with a departure roughly every half hour, and there are two very different products: a seat on a scheduled shuttle, from €195 in 2026, booked and paid for online, and the whole helicopter, as a private flight, at its own price. The shuttle has its own rules, including a strict baggage allowance. A website that mixes the two ends up with an over-laden family booking shuttle seats, or keeps someone waiting for a quote when they simply wanted to book. Two separate journeys, clearly named, avoid both mistakes.

Connect the website to your tools rather than retyping everything

Most brokers and operators already work in specialist software. The website should plug into it, not duplicate it:

• Avinode offers a search module to embed in your website, which shows aircraft with estimated flight times and prices, and turns each request into a lead in your account. One pitfall to be aware of: after 60 days without use, the module is deactivated, and Avinode support has to be contacted to restart it. Avinode can also pass requests on to your client management tool.
• FL3XX, software used by operators, lets your website create a quote request, or even a confirmed booking, and supplies a WordPress plugin.
• Leon, another operator tool, publishes an operator’s availability on many marketplaces, including Avinode, which it updates every fifteen minutes.
• An on-call alert: whatever the tool, every new request must ring on the phone of the person on duty.

Before suggesting anything, I look at what your tools can do: quite often, part of the work already exists, and simply needs connecting to the website.

Complete requests, and replies that go out fast

I design and develop websites for businesses in Monaco and on the French Riviera. For a private aviation company, I start with a simple test: with your agreement, I make a flight request on your website myself, from a phone, on a Friday evening, and time every step until your reply. Then I fix what slows things down (the form, the alert, the connection to your tools) and strengthen what reassures (the page presenting your operators, the protection of your domain name). Before going live, you test the whole journey on a copy of your website. You talk directly to the person who writes the code.

Let’s talk about your website → Web developer in Monaco

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Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Avinode: hours matter when quoting air charter trips (AIN, 2016)
• Quick response time wins bizav business (Avinode, 2015)
• Guidelines and recommendations for charter flight contracting (EBAA and the Air Charter Association, 2020)
• 2026 solidarity tax: explanatory notice (DGAC, in French)
• Public or private transport (DGAC, in French)