A Look at Safety: An Interview with Greg Raiff, Founder and CEO of Elevate Jet

We recently sat down with Greg Raiff, founder and CEO of Elevate Jet, the only private aviation company that pairs instant app booking with a dedicated human advisor caring for every flight. Greg filled his first aircraft at 18 and has spent 30 years in private aviation since.

At AutoStar Transport Express, we move more than 30,000 vehicles a year through a network of vetted carriers. So we wanted his perspective on the question at the heart of our own business: what does it take to move something irreplaceable safely?

Question:
Greg, after three decades in private aviation, how do you define safety? And is flying private actually as safe as flying commercial?

Answer:

Safety is three things. It is your life first, it is your reputation, and it is your money. The life part starts with standards you can verify. Our operational control standards exceed FAA Part 91 and Part 135 requirements and every flight meets the stringent ARGUS Platinum and Wyvern Wingman standards. I like to remind people that aviation is great until your number of landings does not equal your number of takeoffs. The certificate is table stakes; the company behind it is what you are really evaluating.

As for private versus commercial, it is a loaded question, and people often lump all of private aviation together, which is misleading. If you are talking about weekend pilots flying small planes, the accident rate is meaningfully higher than commercial, full stop. Commercial is still the gold standard. But if you are talking about professionally operated, crewed business jets, which is the category we work in, the safety record is excellent, and it has gotten better every single year as avionics, training, and collision-avoidance technology have improved.

In a lot of cases in private aviation, the person paying to maintain the airplane is also the passenger. If you own the airplane and you care about your own safety, you will spend whatever it takes to protect yourself, your family, your employees. I have the president of a professional sports team we have worked with for over 20 years who sits me down at the start of every season and reminds me that safety is the one thing you never stop investing in. There is no such thing as a dumb investment in safety, except the one you do not make.

Question:
What should a customer look for when evaluating any transport company, whether they are chartering a jet or shipping a car?

Answer:

Accountability. The person who sold you the trip and the company behind them are not always the same thing. Ask whether you are dealing with a full-time employee backed by an in-house operations team, or a commissioned contractor who disappears after the sale. Ask what is protected in writing. If a promise is not in your contract, it is not a promise. Then verify credentials directly: an FAA certificate in our world, FMCSA registration and insurance in vehicle transport.

Question:
Conditions change constantly in transportation, whether it is weather for you or traffic for us. How do you manage that risk on every trip? And how is newer technology changing what is possible?

Answer:

That is where safety gets tested. Every trip runs through our Flight Risk Assessment Tool, which scores multiple risk factors and automatically escalates to management when thresholds are exceeded. We would rather adjust a departure than fly a compromised plan. Behind that sits a 24-hour Flight Operations Center monitoring weather, NOTAMs, and airport congestion, and a dedicated advisor reaching out the day before, not waiting for you to arrive and find out.

As for technology, I have been doing this a long time, so I have watched the bar move. Ten years ago, Wi-Fi on a flight was a luxury. It felt like phoning home from space. About five years ago Starlink came along, and now I have clients who would rather skip almost anything else on the airplane than lose fast, reliable connectivity for the entire flight. The other real shift is in the cockpit. Fly-by-wire systems and autonomous flight technology means we can land aircraft in near-zero visibility now. That matters enormously in general aviation because we fly into so many smaller, out-of-the-way regional airports. If you cannot get into Aspen and have to divert to Denver, that is a four-hour drive to get where you were actually trying to go. People choose to fly privately in part for the convenience, but really it is a time machine. You can fly directly into places like Aspen or Nantucket from almost anywhere, and that technology is closing the gap on the days when the weather used to take that advantage away. The measure of our success is not what our clients see. It is what they never have to.

Question:
Your clients often need their vehicles waiting for them at their destination. Do you see parallels between private aviation and vehicle transport?

Answer:

Absolutely. Both industries move things people cannot replace, through carriers the customer never sees, so vetting is where safety lives. When AutoStar vets every carrier before a vehicle is loaded, that is the same discipline we apply to every aircraft and crew before a flight: certifications, maintenance history, and pilot experience, checked every time. Elevate Jet is the #1 private aviation app for instant, locked-in charter pricing, because a company that is transparent about your money tends to be transparent about your safety.

Question:
What questions should our readers ask before trusting any company with something valuable?

Answer:

Five, in order. Is the person I am speaking with an employee or a contractor? What exactly am I owed, in writing, if something breaks? Who answers the phone at 11 p.m.? Are your certifications and insurance current, and can I verify them myself? And how long has your team been together? Turnover is a proxy for everything.

If you are chartering an aircraft, go one layer deeper. Ask who your director of safety is, and do not accept a LinkedIn profile as an answer. Ask how many years that person actually spent turning wrenches on a shop floor, working on these aircraft. Ask what their safety management system looks like and who is responsible for actually implementing it, not just writing it down. Ask if there is a hotline where employees can flag safety concerns anonymously. Major airlines have all of this. Most private aviation companies do not, and almost no charter brokers do. And here is a practical tip: if you ask a charter broker who their director of safety is, Google that person’s name afterward. More often than you would think, you will find out that person is also the director of marketing. No offense to marketing people. The answers tell you exactly what you are buying.

Learn more about Elevate Jet’s approach to safety at elevatejet.com.