Ferry flying
Ferry flying or a positioning flight is the flying of aircraft for the purpose of returning the aircraft to base, delivering it to a customer, moving it from one base of operations to another, or moving it to or from a maintenance facility that includes maintenance, repair, and operations.
A commercial airliner may need to be moved from one airport to another to satisfy the next day's timetable or facilitate routine maintenance. This is commonly known as a positioning flight or repositioning flight, and may carry revenue freight or passengers as local aviation regulations and airline policies allow. Such flights may be necessary following a major weather event or other similar disruption which causes multiple cancellations across an airline's network resulting in many aircraft and crew being out of position for normal operations; the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull or the mass evacuation of US airspace following the 9/11 attacks being significant examples of this.
Ferry permit
A ferry permit is a written authorization issued by a National Airworthiness Authority to move a non-airworthy civil aircraft from its present location to a maintenance facility to be inspected, repaired and returned to an airworthy state.Ferry pilots
flew single- and multi-engine planes 340 times across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, breaking several records in the process.Other notable ferry pilots include:
- Helen Marcelle Harrison Bristol
- Lettice Curtis
- Maureen Dunlop de Popp
- Mary Ellis, WWII pilot in the United Kingdom
- Nathan Fielder, comedian who featured himself ferry flying on season 2 of The Rehearsal
- Luis Fontés
- Joan Hughes
- Amy Johnson
- Jim Mollison
- Robert Neale
- Robert Olds
- Jarvis Offutt
- Jadwiga Piłsudska
- C. W. A. Scott
- Diana Barnato Walker
- Margrit Waltz