AO Sky

Safety Program

Aviation is inherently very unforgiving. You can't just "get it right" part of the time--you have to get it right every time. That's the SKY PArtners/AO Sky difference. Not only do we keep the big safety picture in our constant focus, but we also pay close attention, all of the time, to the little things that can go wrong. It is truly the little things that can cause an accident in the blink of an eye - so we have become fanatics about the minutiae of each flight.

Every charter operator boasts about their platinum or gold ratings from Wyvern and ARGUS. While these safety audits have merit, the truth is they don't determine the true safety culture of a charter company. The audits have merely become the excepted norm, along with Flight Safety crew training.

The questions remain: what does the operator do


beyond those standards? What habits and behaviors are in place? What strict safety practices are being measured during the rest of the year when you are not undergoing an audit? What systems are in place which always maintains a heightened awareness?

What safety improvement ritual is rigidly in place?

These are questions for which we, at AO Sky, have answers.

At SKY Partners and AO Sky, we are obsessed about safety as we are about service. Along with SKY Partners/ARGUS ratings, IS-BAO and coupled with Flight Safety crew training, we have programs, systems, habits and rituals in place that go far beyond what other charter companies profess to have. Our devotion to safety is simply second to none. We could drivel on and on with the same safety gobbledygook you find on other charter company websites, but it is not the fancy words that make an operator safe -- it's the culture, which does.

At SKY Partners and AO Sky,

  • We have rigorously and deliberately created that culture of safety and we work hard every day to sustain it
  • We have created a safety assurance process that monitors, measures, and improves our safety efforts
  • We have a risk management system in place that identifies the flight hazards and applies the proper risk mitigation procedure
  • And, finally, we have found a way to truly promote safety within our flight department through education and our proprietary communication techniques

We have the sincere belief that people do not plan to fail, they just fail to plan... which is usually the culprit in all avoidable accidents. Accordingly, we have created and implemented practices that force us to plan for the unexpected. We look at every element of the trip well in advance, be it weather, runway conditions, maintenance issues, potential crew fatigue issues, and more. We have a tool which asks the "What-Ifs." We plan contingency strategies and back-up tactics accordingly.

We don't make guesses. We don't make assumptions. We make fact-based decisions at every point and we secure the required data to make those fact-based decisions.

Mistakes are not an option for us. At AO Sky, safety and standardization is our way of life.