PART 121, 125 and 135. Definitions and differences.

[amiskwia]

Hello everyone!

I am having a very hard time getting a straight definition of what Part 121, 125 and 135 are. That is, how can I categorize an airline in what part?

Up to this point I have:
Part 121: Scheduled airlines
Part 125: Airlines with 20 or more passengers
Part 135: On demand

Now my question is: a charter airline that flies 737s, what part would it be? 121 and 125? Is a charter airline considered "scheduled" or "on demand"?

Thank you for any help, as I have read through the CFRs, but the more I read the more confused I get...

[Pugilistic Animus]

have you seen 14CFR119

This may help...

FAR Part 119 Sec. 119.1 effective as of 09/11/2007

[amiskwia]

Thanks for the link! I think I might have gotten it straight now:

Part 121: Any domestic, flag or supplemental operation.
Part 125: Any operation where common carriage is not involved.
Part 135: Commuter, on demand and air-taxi operations.

Is that about right? So a charter airline flying 737s would be Part 121 and not Part 125, correct?

Thanks for the help!

[Pugilistic Animus]

due to the 737 having greater than 30seats, it would be part 125 unless the operator has obtained operations specifications under 121 then it would be required to be operated to 121 standards-however I don't think that it could be operated under 135---but in general only one air carrier certification is given by the FAA-which would logically be the most restrictive operation undertaken by the operator...

§ 135.2 Compliance schedule for operators that transition to part 121 of this chapter; certain new entrant operators.

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(a) Applicability. This section applies to the following:
(1) Each certificate holder that was issued an air carrier or operating certificate and operations specifications under the requirements of part 135 of this chapter or under SFAR No. 38–2 of 14 CFR part 121 before January 19, 1996, and that conducts scheduled passenger-carrying operations with:
(i) Nontransport category turbopropeller powered airplanes type certificated after December 31, 1964, that have a passenger seat configuration of 10–19 seats;
(ii) Transport category turbopropeller powered airplanes that have a passenger seat configuration of 20–30 seats; or
(iii) Turbojet engine powered airplanes having a passenger seat configuration of 1–30 seats.
(2) Each person who, after January 19, 1996, applies for or obtains an initial air carrier or operating certificate and operations specifications to conduct scheduled passenger-carrying operations in the kinds of airplanes described in paragraphs (a)(1)(i), (a)(1)(ii), or paragraph (a)(1)(iii) of this section.
(b) Obtaining operations specifications. A certificate holder described in paragraph (a)(1) of this section may not, after March 20, 1997, operate an airplane described in paragraphs (a)(1)(i), (a)(1)(ii), or (a)(1)(iii) of this section in scheduled passenger-carrying operations, unless it obtains operations specifications to conduct its scheduled operations under part 121 of this chapter on or before March 20, 1997.
(c) Regular or accelerated compliance. Except as provided in paragraphs (d), and (e) of this section, each certificate holder described in paragraph (a)(1) of this section shall comply with each applicable requirement of part 121 of this chapter on and after March 20, 1997 or on and after the date on which the certificate holder is issued operations specifications under this part, whichever occurs first. Except as provided in paragraphs (d) and (e) of this section, each person described in paragraph (a)(2) of this section shall comply with each applicable requirement of part 121 of this chapter on and after the date on which that person is issued a certificate and operations specifications under part 121 of this chapter.
(d) Delayed compliance dates. Unless paragraph (e) of this section specifies an earlier compliance date, no certificate holder that is covered by paragraph (a) of this section may operate an airplane in 14 CFR part 121 operations on or after a date listed in this paragraph unless that airplane meets the applicable requirement of this paragraph: but as you can see it gets involved

(1) Nontransport category turbopropeller powered airplanes type certificated after December 31, 1964, that have a passenger seat configuration of 10–19 seats. No certificate holder may operate under this part an airplane that is described in paragraph (a)(1)(i) of this section on or after a date listed in paragraph (d)(1) of this section unless that airplane meets the applicable requirement listed in paragraph (d)(1) of this section:

§ 125.1 Applicability.

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(a) Except as provided in paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) of this section, this part prescribes rules governing the operations of U.S.-registered civil airplanes which have a seating configuration of 20 or more passengers or a maximum payload capacity of 6,000 pounds or more when common carriage is not involved.
(b) The rules of this part do not apply to the operations of airplanes specified in paragraph (a) of this section, when—
(1) They are required to be operated under part 121, 129, 135, or 137 of this chapter;
(2) They have been issued restricted, limited, or provisional airworthiness certificates, special flight permits, or experimental certificates;
(3) They are being operated by a part 125 certificate holder without carrying passengers or cargo under part 91 for training, ferrying, positioning, or maintenance purposes;
(4) They are being operated under part 91 by an operator certificated to operate those airplanes under the rules of parts 121, 135, or 137 of this chapter, they are being operated under the applicable rules of part 121 or part 135 of this chapter by an applicant for a certificate under part 119 of this chapter or they are being operated by a foreign air carrier or a foreign person engaged in common carriage solely outside the United States under part 91 of this chapter;
(5) They are being operated under a deviation authority issued under §125.3;
(6) They are being operated under part 91, subpart K by a fractional owner as defined in §91.1001 of this chapter; or
(7) They are being operated by a fractional ownership program manager as defined in §91.1001 of this chapter, for training, ferrying, positioning, maintenance, or demonstration purposes under part 91 of this chapter and without carrying passengers or cargo for compensation or hire except as permitted for demonstration flights under §91.501(b)(3) of this chapter.
(c) The rules of this part, except §125.247, do not apply to the operation of airplanes specified in paragraph (a) when they are operated outside the United States by a person who is not a citizen of the United States.
(d) The provisions of this part apply to each person on board an aircraft being operated under this part, unless otherwise specified.
(e) This part also establishes requirements for operators to take actions to support the continued airworthiness of each airplane.

unfortunately you need FAR 119 too
Electronic Code of Federal Regulations:

[MarkerInbound]

A charter 737 would fall under the Supplemental section of 121. That is the equivalent of 135 ops in aircraft too large to be covered under 135. At one time Part 135 "reverse defined" a DC-3 as the largest aircraft that could be operated under 135. It talked about an aircraft that could carry 7,500 pounds 186 miles with 350 pounds of engine oil.

A company can have two sets of Ops Specs. There can be 135 Ops Specs covering smaller aircraft and 121 Ops Specs covering larger aircraft. The aircraft are listed on the Ops Specs and would not move between them. Pilots could fly both as long as they had completed both training programs. It becomes interesting trying to keep their flight and duty times straight because the rules are different.

[flyboyike]

What you have to keep in mind here is that the FAA feels (correctly, in my opinion) that a transport category airplane neither knows nor cares what sort of operation it's involved in (private, charter or airline). It's always going to be big, heavy and capable of a lot of damage. So, the regs essentially require all such aircraft to be operated more or less the same way. Thus, for private operators we have Part 125, while for charters we have 121 Supplemental status, which essentially establishes any charter operator that flies airliners to, in fact, be an airline minus a regular schedule.

[Pugilistic Animus]

the words 'common or non common' carriage---tell exactly which operation you are under

Marker Inbound...I thought it was rather rare w/o a waiver that two or more different Opspecs approvals could be given to the same company, two POIs assigned?...maybe I'm wrong though

[amiskwia]

Thanks for all the replies! Now I have a much better idea of what the differences are!
Thank you everybody!

[MarkerInbound]

If the company is operating small aircraft that fit under 135 and larger aircraft that don't, they'll need both operations. Kalitta Charters is running their Lears and Falcons 135 and their DC-9s and 727 121. The 121 side of the house is called Kalitta Charters II but I'll bet there is a lot of overlap.

[cb_boarder04]

Part 110.2 explains the difference through definitions. Here is a summary derived from that information in part 110. It should give you a better visual of it.

Google Drive

Note: In order to view the table correctly, you will need to download the file and open it in PowerPoint (it uses wingdings2 font).

[jobydon]

Air Charter

After reading this posting I am yet not sure how non-scheduled air charter can operate with wide body/long range aircrafts such as B-747,757,767, 777 and A-321,340,380. Can anybody please explain whether it is 121,125 or 135 ops.

[cb_boarder04]

They should fall under part 125.
If you read the chart in the previous post ppt, it shows that large aircraft without common carriage or scheduled service will fall under 125.
Also, if you read 125.1, it reads:


(a) Except as provided in paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) of this section, this part prescribes rules governing the operations of U.S.-registered civil airplanes which have a seating configuration of 20 or more passengers or a maximum payload capacity of 6,000 pounds or more when common carriage is not involved.
(b) The rules of this part do not apply to the operations of airplanes specified in paragraph (a) of this section, when—
(1) They are required to be operated under part 121, 129, 135, or 137 of this chapter;
(2) They have been issued restricted, limited, or provisional airworthiness certificates, special flight permits, or experimental certificates;
(3) They are being operated by a part 125 certificate holder without carrying passengers or cargo under part 91 for training, ferrying, positioning, or maintenance purposes
(4)...
(5)...
(6)...
(7)...

Hope that helps.

[MarkerInbound]

Charter of large aircraft will will fall under 121 if we're using the same definition of charter - a company advertises "We'll take you where and when you want to go." Since there is no schedule it falls under 121 Supplemental. Say a football team owns a plane to travel to games. The only people riding on the plane work with the team or could be family or media invited along. You and I can't buy a ticket on that flight even though we're going to the game. That would fall under 125. There aren't that many 125s around. There are some that have contracts with sports teams flying baseball teams during the summer and hockey during the winter. Donald Trump's plane would fall under 125.

[A Squared]

jobydon,

First, ignore cb_boarder04. He's wrong, it would be Part 121, not part 125, and it has nothing to do with whether the operations are scheduled or not. There are a great number of Part 121 airlines which operate exclusively non-scheduled flights.

The key to which part the operations falls under is whether or not it is "common carriage" . First, you have to understand what "common carriage" is. In a nutshell, common carriage means that you will carry persons or property for hire for the general public. In other words, you will sell tickets to any persons or organizations who wish to buy your services, or your will carry cargo for anyone who has a plane load of cargo and is willing to pay your rates. That's common carriage, you do business with whoever has business.

If you think about it, the vast majority of people offering air transportation are engaged in "common carriage". There are relatively few operators engaged in air commerce who are not engaged in common carriage.

There are a few ways in which you can be engages in other than common carriage:

The first is if you are not offering services to the general public, but only to one or a very few limited customers. Suppose that you had an exclusive contract to haul cargo for a mining company to 3 of their remote mines. That was all the flying your did, you performed the flying on a long term contract, and you did not do any flying for any other customers.

That would be an example of an operation that did not involve common carriage.

If someone else showed up in your parking lot with a truckload of cargo and a bag full of cash and requested that you fly his cargo to a destination of his choosing, you would tell him no (or, if you did agree, you would then be engaging in common carriage)

Another example of operations not involving common carriage would be if the operator owned the property being carried. My previous employer was engaged in this business (and common carriage, as well) they had two operating certificates, one Part 121 and one Part 125 and two fleets of airplanes. The Part 125 certificate and airplanes were used for delivering bulk fuel to remote locations in Alaska. While the fuel business had many customers, it was not common carriage, because when the fuel was being carried in the airplanes, it was owned by the company. We had our own bulk fuel business and the point of sale to the customer was at the airport of destination. So, it wasn't common carriage, because we were not carrying the property of *others*. The part 121 certificate was used for scheduled and non scheduled cargo flights, which were common carriage.

The question of who the fuel belonged to was not a semantic point or an end run around the regulations. Flying your own property in your own plane does not constitute common carriage. We did have one contract to carry bulk fuel which involved fuel that involved fuel which was owned by the customer. That particular operation *was* common carriage, and we could not fly it under Part 125. We installed bulk tanks in one of our Part 121 planes and those flights were done under Part 121.


Anyway, the bottom line is that the difference between Part 125 and 121 has nothing to do with schedules, it has to do with whether or not the operation is common carriage.

[jobydon]

Thanks for the posting. That really helps me.

[hashim]

125

hello
we are private company as charter we have 135
we would like to have 125
my question can we have both of them or I can use our 135 to fly 125
fyi 135 using for falcon acft and we need to use 125 for c130
thanks

[hashim]

135

what the different between far 135 and 125

[MarkerInbound]

Under 135 you can advertise to the public that you will fly them when and where they want to go. Under 125 you have a long term contract with a group that you will fly members of that group but only members of the group. You or I could not just call up a 125 and say, "I want to take 50 friends from A to B tomorrow, how much will it cost?" The Ford Motor Company used to have an in house airline that moved employees from factory to factory on a daily schedule, but you had to be an employee of Ford to ride the planes. That was part 125. Or the example of moving sports teams between games. A 125 might have two contracts, one to move a team during the winter and one to move another team during the summer. I've heard the FAA will limit the number of contracts a 125 can have to 3 or 4 but I've never seen it written.

[Desert185]

The way I understand it referenced to a large aircraft:

121: public charter: supplemental (non-scheduled airline)

125: private use: large aircraft version of 91, and can be negotiated with the FAA to combine parts of 91 and 125 depending on the stated mission for the aircraft. This was the simplified version as told to me by the FAA when I was involved in determining requirements for an appropriate operating certificate for a company who was considering purchase of a large aircraft for research purposes.

135: smaller aircraft only, but I have seen Twin Otters operated under 121 (scheduled ops)

The best course is to have a face to face chat with the prospective FAA POI.

[lifeafteraviation]

135: smaller aircraft only, but I have seen Twin Otters operated under 121 (scheduled ops)

It's not about the size or weight of the aircraft....it's the number of available passenger seats. A large long haul jet can be operated under part 135 and flown for hire around the world as long as the passenger seating configuration is under (I believe the numbe is) 20.

There are some other limitations but that's the basics.