Aircraft Ferry Flights & Repositioning: Post Jobs, Hire a Ferry Pilot
The Ferry section (/ferry) is a two-sided aircraft ferry flight marketplace: owners and brokers post a repositioning job from airport A to B, ferry pilots bid, and the whole delivery runs inside a structured deal room with an optional escrow and a verifiable, tamper-proof history.
Open the ferry boardInteractive preview — every element opens the live section.
Contents
A ferry flight marketplace for aircraft repositioning
The public board at /ferry is server-side rendered so every open job — route A to B, aircraft type and category, date window, budget, requirements, preferred payment mode and the live bid counter — is real, indexable HTML. It is a genuine two-sided market: one side needs a general aviation aircraft moved, the other flies it.
Instead of a scattered classifieds wall or an email thread, the platform runs a single end-to-end loop — job, application, assignment, deal — so nothing about the delivery lives outside the record. Currencies are supported in EUR, USD, GBP and CHF, and money is formatted consistently across the job, the bid and the deal.
- SSR board with three tabs: All jobs, My jobs and My deals
- Route, category (piston / turbo / jet / heli), date window, budget and requirement chips per job
- Preferred payment mode shown up front; final mode is agreed in the room
- ISR revalidation every 120s with a dedicated ferry cache tag
Posting a job and receiving ferry pilot bids
Creating a job at /ferry/new uses AirportSearch to pick departure and destination by ICAO, city or coordinates (ICAO is normalised to uppercase A–Z0–9, up to four characters) and captures coordinates so the route can be drawn on a map. You attach the aircraft from your garage as a chip — model and tail number auto-fill — or enter it by hand, then set the category, date window, budget with currency, requirement presets and a preferred payment mode.
Ferry pilots respond with a ferry-application: their own rate and currency, an ETA note on timing and a message to the owner. Applications move pending → accepted / declined / withdrawn; a pilot always sees the status of their bid and can withdraw it while the job is still open. The owner sees each applicant as a card with name, home base, headline, a verified-account badge and the quoted price.
- Requirement presets: Ferry permit, Transatlantic/oceanic, Type experience, Tailwheel, IFR, Mountain, Ferry insurance, Overflight permits — plus your own via Enter
- Aircraft pulled from your garage (listMyAircraft) or entered manually as model + registration
- Bids carry rate + currency (EUR/USD/GBP/CHF), an etaNote and a cover message
- Owners can delete a job while it is still open
The ferry deal room: a five-step delivery workflow
When the owner accepts a bid, the platform assigns the pilot and opens a ferry-deal — a private owner-to-pilot room. The job flips to assigned, the chosen application to accepted and the rest to declined, a system entry is written into the room, and the pilot gets an email. From there the delivery is driven by a stepper of five stages: brief → documents/permits → payment/escrow → ferry in transit → aircraft delivered.
The stepper only ever moves one step forward, the author of each change is recorded, and both sides see the transition. An append-only chat runs alongside with scroll auto-loading, unread indication, a last-message preview and the author's role; an open room quietly polls every 12 seconds while the tab is visible so new messages arrive without a refresh. Reaching delivered closes the deal and marks the job completed.
- Stages: brief, documents/permits, payment/escrow, in transit, delivered
- One-way stepper — only the next step is available; the change author is fixed
- Append-only chat with unread state, previews and 12s foreground polling
- A route map (RouteMap) and counterparty details with a verified badge and reputation
Optional escrow and payment modes
Escrow is optional and flexible, chosen by the parties rather than forced. Three modes are offered: none (direct settlement — the platform holds no money), Smart Escrow (a deposit held by the platform and released to the pilot on delivery), and an escrow partner (an external title agent, bank or notary referenced from a partner registry with an account reference). The mode preferred on the job is only a preference; the final mode is settled in the room, and it locks once funding starts.
For smart and partner modes a status ledger tracks the deposit: request → fund → release to pilot / refund to owner, plus opening a dispute. Money actions are performed by the paying owner; a dispute can be opened by either side and freezes the deposit until it is resolved. A clear notice states that real fund movement runs through the payment integration or partner, connected separately.
- Modes: none (direct), Smart Escrow (platform-held), partner (external title agent/bank/notary)
- Ledger transitions with role checks: request, fund, release, refund, dispute
- Mode cannot change once funding has begun
- Dispute freezes the deposit instead of releasing or refunding it
Tamper-proof history you can verify
Every message and every stage transition is stored append-only, each carrying a SHA-256 hash and a link to the previous entry so the whole room forms a hash-chain. Before closing a deal, either side can hit Verify integrity — the endpoint recomputes the chain, counts verified and legacy entries and points to the exact break (whether the hash or the link) if the past was altered.
This is what separates a real deal record from a chat you have to trust: the conversation and the money movements are cryptographically bound in sequence, so a party cannot quietly rewrite an earlier agreement. Access is gated at the controller level — public board reads with manual checks, owner-only create/update/delete/assign, and room actions restricted to the two parties — while counterparties are exposed safely with reputation and a verified badge but without opening the underlying user account.
- SHA-256 hash-chain over messages and transitions with a Verify integrity button
- Verification returns verified/legacy counts and the break point (hash or link)
- My deals lists every room you are in with stage, amount, escrow mode + status and unread flag
- Terminal cancellation by either side closes the job and deal, chat goes read-only, history is kept
How it works
- Post a ferry job at /ferry/new: pick airports via AirportSearch, attach the aircraft, set category, date window, budget and requirements
- Ferry pilots bid with their rate, timing (etaNote) and a message; applications sit pending
- Accept a bid to assign the pilot — a ferry deal room opens and the pilot is emailed
- Work the five-step stepper in the room: brief, documents/permits, payment/escrow, in transit, delivered
- Optionally use escrow (none / Smart Escrow / partner) and track the deposit ledger
- Verify the hash-chain before closing; reaching delivered completes the job
FAQ
How do I hire a ferry pilot for a repositioning flight?
Post a job at /ferry/new with the route, aircraft, date window, budget and requirements. Ferry pilots submit bids with their rate and timing; you review each applicant's card and accept one, which opens a deal room and emails the assigned pilot.
Is escrow required, and how does it work?
No. Escrow is optional. You can settle directly (none), use Smart Escrow where the platform holds a deposit and releases it to the pilot on delivery, or route a large deal through an external escrow partner. The mode locks once funding begins, and either side can open a dispute to freeze the deposit.
Can I specify a ferry permit or transatlantic experience?
Yes. When posting a job you add requirement presets such as Ferry permit, Transatlantic/oceanic, Type experience, Tailwheel, IFR, Mountain, Ferry insurance and Overflight permits, and you can add your own free-form requirements.
What makes the deal history trustworthy?
The room is append-only and every message and stage change is bound into a SHA-256 hash-chain. A Verify integrity button recomputes the chain and points to any break, so neither side can rewrite an earlier message or payment step.
Post a ferry flight — get pilot bids
Repositioning with a deal room, tracked delivery and a logbook entry at the end.
Open ferry Free for pilots and owners · 35 languages