Almost every clause in a modern aircraft transaction was written by a deal that went wrong for somebody. That is worth remembering when the process starts to feel bureaucratic: the escrow account, the inspection rights, the title search are not friction, they are scar tissue. Here is the whole arc as we actually run it, step by step, with the places it goes wrong marked as we pass them.
1. Define the mission before the model
Start with your last twenty trips and an honest view of the next two years: sectors, passenger counts, runways, how often you genuinely fly full. That profile — not a brand preference — selects the class, and usually narrows twenty candidate types to three. If you are still weighing propellers against fans, that question has its own article; if range is the open variable, so does that one. Our model guide exists for exactly this stage.
Budget at the same time for the whole cost of ownership, not the purchase price — crew, hangarage, programmes, insurance and the calendar inspections that arrive whether you fly or not. The real numbers are here, and they should be in front of you before the first viewing, because the cheapest airframe on the market is usually the most expensive aircraft to own.
2. Search the whole market, not the listed market
Public listing sites show a fraction of what is genuinely for sale. A meaningful share of good airframes trade quietly — owners who will sell at the right number but will not advertise, fleets being rotated before the announcement. A connected broker canvasses both halves, and just as importantly knows which listed aircraft to walk past: the one with the unrepaired lightning strike buried in the records, the one whose engines are mid-life with no programme, the one with a lien nobody has resolved since the last financing. Much of a broker’s value is the aircraft you never waste a week on — true whether the shortlist lands on a Citation Excel or a Gulfstream G550.
3. The offer and the letter of intent
Once a candidate survives a records pre-screen, you make an offer, and the accepted offer is recorded in a letter of intent. The LOI is conventionally non-binding on the sale itself — either side can still walk — but binding on the mechanics that protect the walk. A properly drawn one covers:
- The aircraft, by serial number — with engines, APU and installed equipment identified, and any programme enrolments that transfer with the sale.
- Price and deposit — the deposit lodged with a named escrow agent on signature, fully refundable until you formally accept the aircraft after inspection. The precise trigger that makes it non-refundable is the most negotiated sentence in the document.
- Exclusivity — the seller takes the aircraft off the market for a defined window and does not shop your number to the underbidder while you spend money on diligence.
- Inspection scope — which facility, what work scope, who pays for the inspection and who pays to correct what it finds.
- Delivery conditions — airworthy, systems functional, current on its maintenance programme, free of liens, with complete records.
Buyers sometimes treat the LOI as a formality and save the lawyering for the purchase agreement. That is backwards: the purchase agreement can only refine what the LOI framed, and a concession surrendered here is rarely recovered later.
4. The pre-purchase inspection — do not economise here
The PPI happens at a facility qualified on the type, and ideally one with no service relationship with the seller. The physical work scope runs through the airframe zones for corrosion and repairs, the landing gear, pressurisation and environmental systems, the avionics, and — unless the engines are on an hourly programme whose own trend monitoring and borescope history make it redundant — a fresh borescope of the engines. Engine condition is where the money hides: an engine approaching overhaul with no programme behind it can be worth a seven-figure adjustment on a midsize jet, which is why programme enrolment is checked before anything else. A functional check flight is normally part of the scope.
The records audit matters more than the metal
At least half the commercial findings come from the paperwork, not the aircraft. Complete, continuous logbooks are a large fraction of an airframe’s value; a missing year of history discounts an aircraft more than a worn interior ever will, because every future buyer will apply the same discount to you. The audit verifies that every airworthiness directive is complied with, that damage history is disclosed and properly repaired, and that component times reconcile with the logbooks. We have watched a deal die over a single undocumented prop strike found on page nine hundred of the records — and that was the audit doing its job.
How long it takes
Roughly: a few days for a turboprop like a King Air B200 or PC-12, up to a week for a light or midsize jet such as a Hawker 900XP, and two weeks or more for a large-cabin aircraft like a Falcon 7X or Global Express, where the records alone can run to dozens of boxes. Findings then become negotiation: airworthiness items are corrected at the seller’s cost as a condition of closing, cosmetic and due-soon items are priced. Every expensive surprise we have ever been called in to untangle traces back to a skipped or shortened PPI.
5. Title, escrow and closing
Aircraft title has a geography. For N-registered aircraft the record of ownership and liens is the FAA Civil Aviation Registry in Oklahoma City, which is why a small industry of title and escrow firms sits in that one city and why so many deals worldwide close through it. The title search goes back through the chain of ownership looking for unreleased liens, gaps and defective conveyances.
Since the Cape Town Convention came into force, larger assets also live on the International Registry — an electronic registry, run from Ireland, recording interests in airframes and aircraft engines above certain size thresholds, broadly airframes certified for eight or more occupants and engines above roughly 550 shaft horsepower or 1,750 pounds of thrust. Priority is decided strictly by who filed first, which means a clean FAA or national search is not enough on its own: the IR must be searched too, for the airframe and for each engine by its own serial number, because engines are separate assets that may carry separate financing. South Africa is a contracting state, so this applies squarely to ZS-registered deals.
Escrow is what lets strangers exchange several million dollars for a movable asset without either side trusting the other. The agent holds the deposit, the balance of funds and the signed bill of sale, and at closing releases and files everything in the correct sequence — the seller’s lien discharged, title conveyed, the new owner’s financing registered — so that no moment exists in which money and title are in the wrong hands at once. Your written technical acceptance after the PPI is usually the moment the deposit hardens; after that, walking away costs real money.
6. Crossing borders: export, import and tax
Cross-border deals — most of ours — add a layer that should be planned at LOI stage, not discovered at closing. The exporting authority issues an export certificate of airworthiness, confirming a recent satisfactory review of the aircraft’s condition for the benefit of the importing state. Deregistration and re-registration must then be sequenced with care: an aircraft deregistered before its new registration is ready is briefly stateless and cannot legally fly, and a deregistration at a busy authority can take weeks, not days.
Importing to South Africa means SACAA registration paperwork, proof that the type is accepted by the authority, and customs clearance before a local certificate of airworthiness is issued; the ferry flight home is flown under permit and planned around fuel stops and overflight clearances that an African routing makes non-trivial. Import VAT and duties differ by jurisdiction and by how the aircraft will be used — some regimes relieve aircraft in genuine commercial use, others offer temporary admission for visiting airframes, and the boundaries move. This is emphatically territory for your own tax adviser, engaged early. The only universal rule is that tax planned after closing is tax paid in full.
Representative image7. Delivery is not the end
Delivery day itself is short: an acceptance flight against the delivery conditions, final funds confirmed, filings made, keys and records handed over. What makes the first ninety days smooth was arranged weeks earlier — insurance bound from the moment of transfer, crew typed and current on the aircraft, engine and maintenance programmes formally transferred or newly enrolled, management and hangarage contracted, subscriptions and databases moved into your name. A good broker walks you into an operating aircraft, not merely a registered one; the difference is a fortnight of flying versus a fortnight of phone calls.
Run well, the whole process takes roughly six to twelve weeks from offer to delivery, and what makes it run well is having someone on your side of the table who has done it many times. That is the conversation we are always glad to start, whether or not the right aircraft turns out to be one of ours.