SSG: Spy/Spec-Ops Group discussion

Question about corporate air travel

Let's say you are a V.I.P. and you always travel in a corporate jet. How is that jet, its baggage, and its passengers handled by the airports of the world?

They probably land you on one of the smaller runways I guess. But then do you taxi to the main building where the big commercial jets are? Or do they keep you separated, parked farther away?

But if they do that, then how does your plane get processed by security staff? What about baggage?

Would your passengers get processed through the main Customs & INS sections of the airport or are there different, separate facilities for private flights? Would Customs come out to meet you?

Thanks

So I know some of these things. Depends on the airport, but usually you use file your flight plan and they plan you a time to arrive and give you a runway based on flight plans for the day. Like any other day. Then, you taxi to a non-terminal building for charter planes. Read - not where the big commercial jets are. You are separated.

For the security and customs it's different, but there is a security process. Some are good and some are bad. I've seen some where there was no security and if you had anything in your bag, well it made it on the plane no matter what it was. Other's I've seen almost full body-cavity searches.

Not sure on the customs questions and international travel on private jets.

I've flown private jets a few times. Baggage was handled by the crew with no special security required. No one ever checked or X-rayed my bags prior to departure.

You leave and arrive at the "general aviation" portion of an airport. They have customs and immigration staff there at international airports. I've had the customs and immigration people come out to meet my plane, and have had to go into a general aviation building and clear customs and immigration inside. It varies by airport.

Typically, you'll land on any runway that's available at that moment. I've landed on the main runways of large airports, with our plane being sandwiched between arriving airliners. At one airport, we took off from a shorter runway, which was great as then we didn't have to wait in-line behind all of the airliners queued to take off from the main runways.

I've also flown in and out of Teterboro, NJ, which is the NYC area airport completely devoted to private aircraft. It's got wonderful free parking!

Michael
http://michaelconnick.com

I've spent many years handling VIP flights. Normally, the flight crew or the aircraft's management works with every arrival airport to ensure (and pay for) security. Airport to airport passenger screening in the US is almost non-existent if you transit contractor-operated ramps. Cars can drive right to the plane and whisk passengers away unhindered.

The runway you land on is unimportant. You'll can taxi to any ramp.

Overseas, things get much trickier and are specific to each airport. The plane will usually be met by a contract "handler" who brings security, agriculture and customs people with him. Customs clearance is usually done planeside for the very VIP and can be the most troublesome part of the coordination.

The host nation reception team can be casual or difficult and demanding depending on current relations with the US or even the reputation of the VIP.

I was wondering about that international flying by corporate jets. I knew that it certainly was not like what was depicted in 'R.E.D.' (Bruce Willis, John Malkovich), where you saw a corporate jet belonging to a jet-setting Asian professional assassin landing at Moscow airport (with plenty of weapons aboard), with no customs or security checks by the normally paranoid Russian security agencies.

A much more realistic example was shown near the end of the movie 'THE DA VINCI CODE', when the MC (Tom Hanks), fleeing the French police, landed in England in a private jet. The British police, alerted via Interpol, was hot on their trail and got to the jet just after it taxied inside a private hangar.

Great stuff you guys.

So to sum up so far: VIP jets are not subject to the usual protocols. Its all arranged in advance. On arrival, the jets usually taxi to some 'other part' of the airport for processing (if any).

Alternately, the officials may come out to planeside to handle the formalities.

Is this paraphrase generally correct?

Feliks wrote: "Great stuff you guys.

So to sum up so far: VIP jets are not subject to the usual protocols. Its all arranged in advance. On arrival, the jets usually taxi to some 'other part' of the airport for p..."

Sounds right to me.

Michael
http://michaelconnick.com

Jets? I Like the ones made by the Brazilian plane company Embraer. Their Lineage 1000E in particular is a thing of beauty. Plus, there's enough room for an en-suite bedroom in the back.

As for other jets, Gulfstream could get the CIA to do endorsements for their G550. The company has several in their personal fleet by all accounts. A perfect balance between range and enough space to conduct covert business.

Samuel wrote: "As for other jets, Gulfstream could get the CIA to do endorsements for their G550. The company has several in their personal fleet by all accounts. A perfect balance between range and enough space ..."

And I could only imagine how such a hypothetical endorsement would go and turn out ;)