The FAA's public list of certificated Part 135 operators and their authorized aircraft has experienced repeated disruptions over a roughly ten-month period spanning mid-2025 through early 2026, with the agency restoring access as of May 1, 2026 and committing to weekly update cycles. The spreadsheet, downloadable directly from faa.gov, catalogs certificate holder names, FAA district office assignments, N-numbers, serial numbers, and aircraft make/model/series for the approximately 11,300 to 11,500 aircraft authorized under 14 CFR Part 135 at any given time. The list first went dark in early July 2025 during a data migration, resumed September 17, 2025 with 11,323 aircraft listed, went offline again in February 2026 for data integrity corrections, and was restored in May 2026 — a cycle that drew a formal alert from the National Air Transportation Association, which directed industry contacts to [email protected] during the outage periods.
For charter operators, flight departments, and aviation consumers, the Part 135 aircraft list functions as a primary due-diligence tool for confirming the legal authority of any proposed on-demand or commuter air carrier operation. Absence from the list — or a mismatch between a listed N-number and the actual aircraft presented for a flight — historically triggers a referral to the local Flight Standards District Office. The disruptions therefore introduced meaningful verification risk during a period when the charter market was active, particularly given that errors persisted even after the September 2025 restoration: the defunct carrier Verijet, which filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in October 2025, remained listed with two Cirrus SF50s, and a prior version of the restored list omitted NetJets entirely — an operator that flies roughly 725 certificated aircraft, the largest single fleet on the list by a substantial margin. Flexjet, Vista Global, Wheels Up, and FlyExclusive round out the top tier with 323, 91, 80, and 82 aircraft respectively.
The data integrity failures carry operational and legal implications that extend beyond consumer-facing charter decisions. Corporate flight departments operating under Part 91K fractional programs or arranging supplemental lift through charter brokers rely on the list for compliance verification, insurance documentation, and contract due diligence. For Part 135 certificate holders themselves, accurate listing is foundational to marketing legal authority and maintaining brokered relationships, particularly with charter aggregators and jet card programs that conduct periodic audits of their operator networks. An operator erroneously omitted from the list — as NetJets was — faces potential friction with customers and brokers conducting verification checks, even if the underlying certificate remains fully valid.
The episode reflects a broader pattern of FAA administrative infrastructure lagging behind the operational demands of a rapidly expanding charter and fractional market. The agency's decision to migrate and consolidate data resources, while administratively logical, created a verification gap at a time when the on-demand charter sector was absorbing displaced demand from post-pandemic turbulence at legacy fractional providers and the bankruptcy of operators like Verijet. The transition from monthly to weekly updates, if sustained, would represent a meaningful improvement in list currency and reduce the window during which newly certificated operators or recently added aircraft remain unlisted. Cross-referencing the FAA spreadsheet with AVinfo.gov's Air Operator Search tool and third-party resources such as avoidillegalcharter.com remains best practice for any operator or charter customer requiring verified, near-real-time confirmation of Part 135 authority.