I left flying 20 years ago to pursue a business career while the kids were young. They are almost grown now, and I'd like to fly again, probably Part 135. My question is this:

Do all 8/6 operators (such as Travel Management, FlyExclusive, etc.) force you to sit at the airport all day even if there are no scheduled flights? I read somewhere that XO doesn't call you out to the airport unless you have a scheduled flight, but I can't remember if that was fact or hearsay.

Also, I fully understand the pro's and cons the 121 vs 135 debate. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I can only speak for GAMA and YES! Plan on always being airport standby if you do not get assigned to a schedualed flight. Unless the plane breaks. They say it’s because of the WUP agreement.

We do not have airport standby at flyExclusive. Typically, we check out of hotel and head to airport 90 minutes prior to a scheduled flight assignment. If we have no flight assignments scheduled for the day, we stay at hotel until late check out (4 PM for Marriott Titanium Members), then head to the FBO for a couple hours, stock, clean, organize plane, take the FBO crew car to get stock, a late lunch or early dinner. Head back to hotel around 6 pm.

Under extenuated circumstances, I have been assigned hot standby at the airport twice in three years. Once this past July 4 holiday when there were few bookings on the schedule and recently on an early morning to be ready to depart for a maintenance recovery on an important international flight. On July 4th, Holiday pay made my hanging out at the FBO all day more palatable and our Addl’ pay on flights that start before 6am policy also made it worthwhile on the second instance.

PM me if you have other questions.

Can you give an example of a typical day like you describe? Can they have you sit at the airport all day and then late in the afternoon duty you on for a flight? How would the rest rules apply here? Sorry, but I’m new to 135 rules, trying to understand.


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Duty Rules (according to the FAA):

Your duty begins at the time your company notified you your duty would begin, not when you get a flight assignment. For example, if you are told you will start standby duty (at home, hotel, FBO) at 0800, but you don’t receive a flight assignment until 1600, your duty began at 0800.

Prior to accepting any flight assignment, you must be able to “look back” and ensure you had required rest. In the previous example, if you were notified at 1600 that you had a scheduled departure at 1800 for a 3-hour flight (plus company required 30-minute post-flight), you could only accept the flight if at 2130 you could look back and ensure you met the rest requirements (typically something like 10 hours in the previous 24 hours).

Duty Rules (real world):

Many operators will try to illegally put you in standby and also count it as rest. This is often referred to as “rolling rest”. If they then assign you to a flight, THEY have violated the FARs. If you accept such an assignment, now YOU have violated the FARs and it’s your ticket on the line...

Be safe out there...

To expand on this a little, if we’re given any kind of standby (home, hotel, airport) we always get duty times. When they give us our off time at night, they’ll give us an on time for the next day.

Rolling rest is largely a thing of the past, at least at the more reputable operators. I don't think I ever heard of one trying to count airport standby as rest, though, even in the bad old days.

How often is this actually enforced though? Doesn't the FAA turn a blind eye to this?

Ok. Thanks for the examples. So when LLWS09R says that at GAMA you can plan on always being on airport standby, he is saying that it will always count as “duty time”.


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you got it. But looking at the company as a whole, the amount of airport standby is a small percentage of our duty.