Who we support: charter, corporate, management and brokers
LFS supports four overlapping segments of business aviation. First, on-demand charter operators (Part 135 / AOC) who need same-day permits and handling for client trips into the Gulf, Levant and Africa. Second, in-house corporate flight departments (Part 91 / private) who fly principals and senior leadership and need a desk that operates on their schedule, not airline-clock hours. Third, aircraft management companies running mixed-use fleets across multiple jurisdictions, where the operating burden of permit cycles, fuel contracts and handler relationships is precisely what they have outsourced. Fourth, brokers and charter sales houses who need an operator-grade trip-support partner behind every quote, including last-minute repositioning legs. Across all four, the common requirement is the same: one desk, one reference, one invoice, no third-party brokers in the chain.
Permits: GCAA, GACA, ECAA, CARC and the rest — filed in-house
Business aviation permits are not a commodity. Every regulator on the LFS coverage map handles non-series operations differently. The UAE GCAA issues landing permits inside four working hours for charter and corporate flights once the operator profile is on file; Saudi GACA typically runs to 24–48 hours and requires Royal Protocol approval for Royal Terminal arrivals at OERK or OEJN; Egyptian ECAA is 48–72 hours for non-diplomatic operators and longer during peak Hajj or political season; Jordanian CARC, Bahraini CAA, Qatar QCAA, Kuwait DGCA and Omani PACA each have their own paperwork stack and lead-time profile. LFS files all of these in-house against a permanent operator file, so the second leg of a multi-leg trip is not a fresh negotiation. Common rejections — missing passenger manifests, fleet insurance gaps, mismatched callsigns between FPL and permit — are caught at file time, not at gate-hold time. See our country-by-country detail under /flight-support for the live lead-time band per regulator.
Handling: FBOs, executive terminals and dedicated business-aviation fields
Across the LFS network, business aviation routes through three handling channels: dedicated business-aviation airports (OMAD Al Bateen, LGSM Mykonos, LFMD Cannes, LFPB Le Bourget) where there is no airline conflict; FBOs co-located inside busy international fields (Jetex and ExecuJet at OMDB and OMDW, Royal Jet at OMAA, ExecuJet at OBBI, EAS at OERK); and full-service handler chains (dnata, Bahrain Airport Services, Saudi Ground Services, Etihad Airport Services Ground) at fields without an FBO. LFS holds a direct handling agreement with the dominant ground handler at every LFS-station airport, plus a preferred-handler matrix at 500+ tier-1 fields. For VVIP arrivals we coordinate Royal Terminal access (UAE, KSA, Jordan, Qatar), motorcade with security escort, and customs/immigration cleared inside the FBO — never at the public terminal. Our handler-partner directory is published at /handling/partners.
Fuel: Jet A-1 supply, credit, and price transparency
Business aviation fuel is where the most opaque cost in the trip lives. LFS publishes indicative Jet A-1 price bands per airport (USD per US gallon, ex-taxes and fees) and confirms the exact uplift price per trip — there is no hidden margin between Platts and the invoice. We hold direct supply relationships with ENOC Aviation, ADNOC Distribution, Aramco Aviation, BAPCO Aviation, KPI, QJet, TotalEnergies Aviation, Shell Aviation, Misr Petroleum and Air BP. For repeat operators we run a standing credit line so AOG ferry and short-notice charter legs are not blocked at the into-plane truck. The full per-airport pricing matrix and live-quote workflow lives at /capabilities/fuel.
Crew logistics: hotac, transport, duty-time and visas
On every charter and corporate trip into the LFS coverage area, LFS arranges crew hotac at vetted properties with preferred rates, ground transport with airside or landside pickup, and visa coordination through local authorities (UAE ICP, Saudi GACA, Egyptian CAA, Jordanian CARC). For multi-leg trips we sequence pairings and rest periods against EASA FTL or FAA Part 117 limits and flag duty-time exposure before the trip closes — not at the gate of the next leg. Crew transport in the UAE and Saudi Arabia routes through the FBO airside lane wherever possible; in fields without airside access we provide pre-cleared landside drivers. See the full crew workflow at /capabilities/crew.
Real-time ops: what happens after engines start
An LFS trip does not end when the FPL is filed. Our real-time operations desk (24/7 from Bahrain OBBI) tracks every leg from off-blocks to on-blocks. Tactical re-routes for weather, ATC flow management or NOTAM changes are filed by LFS and pushed to the crew via SATCOM/ACARS where equipped, by phone where not. Slot reallocations at OMDB, OERK and OTHH during congestion windows are negotiated by LFS with the airport coordinator. Diversions are handled with a pre-positioned alternate handler — most often OMDW or OBBI for UAE and Gulf flows, OEDF or OEMA for the western Saudi sector, OJAQ for the Levant. The full real-time ops desk capability is documented at /capabilities/realtime-ops.
What this means for a typical business aviation trip
A representative trip — a Gulfstream G650 charter from London to Riyadh to Cairo and back — sees LFS file three landing permits, six overflight clearances (UK, France, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Saudi inbound; reverse on the return), four fuel uplifts, four handling orders, two crew hotac packages and one VVIP Royal Terminal arrival at OERK. The customer sees one reference number, one point of contact, one invoice and one consolidated trip sheet. The work behind that single trip sheet — eight regulators, four ground handlers, three fuel suppliers, two hotel groups, two FBOs — is what LFS removes from the operator's day. To start that work for a trip in your pipeline, send the request via /request and the LFS dispatch desk will respond inside 60 minutes.