Brokers-Scum of the Earth or necessary evil?

[whatfuelpolicy]

The 135 Operators need to push the Feds to require brokers to have some sort of certification. The industry needs to weed out the bottom feeders that only want to pay light jet one way pricing for a Global 5000 round trip to Europe. The operator I work for has stopped quoting the bottom feeders and if everyone else will jump on board, eventually, the bottom feeders will go away. On the flip-side, there are some crap-hole operators that are whoring out their aircraft and crews and catering to the bottom feeding brokers. STOP IT.

Many brokers are advertising that they are an operator and their clients are none the wiser. I recently had a group of pax that asked when "broker's name" got the CL300 that they were on. They were surprised and upset when they learned that "broker" did not own or operate our CL300.

 

[pilotyip]

hey if you expect nothing; you can never be disappointed

 

[pilothouston123]

Brokers, Management companies, all Charge for what I as an avation director do for my boss. We have 12 aircraft and I love my job. I must wear many different hats including PIC but knowing I saved our company over a milllion dollars over the past 2 years gives me great satisfaction. Not to mention I just picked out our new G4.

 

[BayBum37ft]

Once again a broker has brought lying to a new level. We picked up 8 pax and enough suit cases to start a department store and the lead pax was told by the broker that they got an upgrade to the X. What other plane is below a X that can carry 8 pax and bags on a 3 hour flight?

 

[Woodstockpal]

1 used car salesman + 1 pimp = charter broker

 

[BobbyB623]

While I wouldn't disagree that there are some bad brokers out there, all brokers shouldn't be lumped into this category. There are good ones out there. And, to some extent, the operators are responsible for the current behavior of the broker. By joining the availability aggregators (CharterX, Avinode, etc.), regularly making availability known and marketing empty-legs, the operators have effectively commoditized the industry. It is no longer about relationships, but about the lowest price you can get for a specific flight. Each flight is now a commodity and open to haggling on price. This is what drives the greed mentality, which in turn spurs on the bottomfeeders.