"Dry lease" gets used loosely across general aviation — sometimes correctly, sometimes as a label stretched over an arrangement that looks a lot more like charter with extra paperwork. The FAA doesn't grade on labels. Its test is functional: who actually holds operational control, who selects and pays the crew, and what the marketing actually promises. When those answers point the wrong way, the FAA and the courts have consistently treated it as an illegal charter — "holding out" air transportation to the public without the Part 135 certificate that requires — no matter what the lease document says on page one.
The seven patterns below are drawn from the kind of enforcement history and NTSB findings that recur across this industry, generalized and anonymized — no company named, because the pattern is what matters, not the name. None of this is rare or exotic; it's the same handful of shortcuts showing up again and again, because they're the shortcuts that save a would-be charter operator the cost and scrutiny of a Part 135 certificate. If you're evaluating a lessor, including us (here's exactly how ours is built), run the paperwork against these seven signs before you sign anything.
1. The lessor lines up — or pays — your pilots
In a genuine dry lease, you're the operator, which means you independently select, hire, and pay your own flight crew. If the company leasing you the airplane is also the one recruiting your pilot, assigning one to your trip, or issuing the paycheck, the FAA reads that as the lessor — not you — controlling the flight. Crew control is one of the clearest operational-control indicators there is, and it's the one enforcement actions come back to most often.
What legitimate looks like: a lessor can hand you a list of independent, qualified pilots who know the airframe — but you're the one who interviews, hires, and pays. No scheduling, no assignment, no paycheck from the lessor's side, ever.
2. Pilot cost shows up on the lease invoice
Paying your pilot is supposed to be a separate transaction you handle directly. When a lessor folds pilot pay into the same invoice as the aircraft rent — one line item, one check — it bundles "flight service" into the aircraft charge, which is what a charter invoice looks like. Combined billing has shown up repeatedly as documentary evidence in enforcement cases, because paper trails don't lie even when marketing copy does.
What legitimate looks like: two invoices that never touch. Lease rent goes to the lessor for the aircraft. Pilot pay — typically $1,000–1,500/day — goes from you directly to the pilot, with no markup and no pass-through.
3. The rate looks like a charter price
A dry-lease rate should reflect what it costs to rent the airplane itself — hull, insurance carry, maintenance reserve, a margin. If that number tracks the local charter market instead, the FAA and courts look past the label to what's actually being sold, because a rate that matches retail charter usually means a service markup is hiding inside it.
What legitimate looks like: a published, itemized rate that stands on its own next to the pilot's separate day rate — not a number that happens to land where a charter quote would. A rate that only makes sense once you add "and we'll also handle the flying" is a rate quietly pricing a service, not an airplane. Run the comparison yourself in the cost estimator, or see a full worked example with every line shown.
4. You're coached for what to say on a ramp check
Ramp inspectors ask a short set of questions: who hired the pilot, who's paying, who made the go/no-go call. If a lessor preps you with talking points for those questions — a script, a cover story, an instruction to "just say it's your trip" — that's not caution, it's an admission. Everyone involved already knows the arrangement wouldn't survive being described accurately.
What legitimate looks like: nothing to coach, because the paperwork already matches the practice. You should be able to answer a ramp inspector plainly, from memory, without a script.
5. You have no real say over crew, maintenance, or schedule
Operational control isn't a signature on page one — the FAA looks at who actually makes the go/no-go call, who picks the pilot, and who decides when the aircraft flies next. If the lessor sets your schedule, insists on a specific pilot, and manages maintenance without your input, you're riding along, not operating the aircraft, regardless of what the lease says.
What legitimate looks like: you make the go/no-go call, you're never required to use a lessor-assigned pilot, and you get full visibility into maintenance status so your decisions are actually informed.
6. The same company markets turnkey aircraft-plus-crew to the public
Marketing is evidence. "Holding out" air transportation means advertising a travel outcome to the public — regardless of which contract gets signed later. If a company's website or ads promote "we'll fly you," a bundled plane-and-pilot package, or anything that reads like booking a trip rather than renting an aircraft, the FAA treats that the same as running an uncertificated air carrier.
What legitimate looks like: the offer is always the aircraft — never a flight, a trip, a seat, or a destination we deliver. That's not a style choice; it's the legal line, and it's why you'll never see "book now" anywhere on this site. A useful gut check, borrowed from the rental-car world: if a sentence stops making sense with "rental car" substituted for "aircraft," it's probably crossing that line.
7. "Guaranteed availability" that works like dispatch
A true lessee is the operator, including the risk that the aircraft might not be available on a given day. If a lessor guarantees the airplane will always be ready, or runs scheduling like a dispatcher fielding booking requests and assigning tails, that's functionally what a certificated charter operator's dispatch desk does — and it implies the lessor, not you, is carrying operational responsibility.
What legitimate looks like: availability is non-exclusive — you request, we confirm. No guarantees, because a guarantee is exactly how a lease starts impersonating a charter operation. You plan around the same downtime you'd plan around if you owned the aircraft outright.
How Palm Aero built every answer to be a clean "no"
We wrote this list partly as a public audit of ourselves. We hold no Part 135 certificate — by design, not by accident. You choose, hire, and pay your own pilot; we can share a list of qualified independent pilots, and that's where our involvement in crew ends. Our rate for the Citation CJ1 is published and itemized — $1,750/hr block or $1,950/hr pay-as-you-go, indicative — separate from anything you pay your pilot directly. There's no combined invoice, no coaching, and no script, because the paperwork already says what's actually true. You hold operational control: go/no-go, routing, and schedule are yours. Our marketing offers the aircraft, never a flight — you can check that against the plain-English difference between a dry lease and a charter. And availability is non-exclusive, stated as exactly that, every time.
If what you actually need is someone to fly you somewhere — a flown-for-you trip, not an airplane to operate yourself — that's a charter, and we're deliberately not a charter company. We're happy to point you to a certificated Part 135 operator instead. That's not a lost sale to us; it's the same honesty this whole list runs on. If you'd rather hold the keys yourself, tell us your routes and we'll walk you through what a clean lease with us looks like, or browse more on how the structure works first. Either way, run us — or anyone else you're considering — through these seven signs before you sign.
The patterns above are generalized from publicly reported FAA and NTSB enforcement history and industry reporting; none describes a specific, identifiable company. This article is general information, not legal advice — evaluate any dry lease, including ours, with qualified aviation counsel before you sign. Palm Aero Group is not a charter operator and holds no Part 135 certificate — here's exactly how a compliant dry lease works.