Hiring a fractional director of operations

Director of Operations is not a general management title in a certificated operation. Under 14 CFR 119.69, a Part 135 certificate holder must have qualified personnel serving as Director of Operations, Chief Pilot and Director of Maintenance — the only exception being a certificate holder using a single pilot. The titles are written into the operations specifications, the duties and authority are stated in the manual required by 135.21, and the names and business addresses of the people holding them are listed there too.

The qualifications are equally specific. Under 119.71, a DO at an operator whose pilots in command must hold an ATP has to hold an ATP themselves, plus either three years of supervisory or managerial experience within the last six years in a position exercising operational control under Part 121 or Part 135, or three years within the past six as pilot in command in those operations. At a commercial-certificate operator the licence bar drops but the three-in-six experience bar does not.

That is why the seat is hard to backfill quickly. The candidate pool is not "experienced aviation manager" — it is people who already carry the certificate, the operational-control history and the regulatory literacy the role assumes on day one.

• Operational control — The DO owns the authority to initiate, conduct and terminate flights — scheduling, dispatch and release sit under this seat.
• The manual and the op specs — Duties, responsibilities and authority for the position are written into the general policy provisions of the 135.21 manual, and the position title appears in the operations specifications.
• The regulator relationship — The DO is a principal point of contact for the responsible Flight Standards office, from routine surveillance through findings and corrective action.
• Standards and oversight — Crew qualification, training currency, operational risk and the day-to-day discipline that keeps the certificate healthy report into this role.

The regulation is more accommodating here than most operators assume. Compare the text: 14 CFR 119.65, which governs Part 121 management personnel, requires qualified personnel serving "full-time" in the listed positions. 14 CFR 119.69, the Part 135 equivalent, requires qualified personnel serving in those positions and does not carry the full-time wording. What the rule insists on is that the person be qualified, that their duties and authority be documented, and that they actually discharge them.

On top of that, 119.69(b) lets the Administrator approve different positions, or a different number of them, for a particular operation where the certificate holder can show the operation runs at the highest degree of safety under a smaller or differently shaped management team, given the kind of operation, the number and type of aircraft, and the area of operations. And where a candidate is strong but does not tick a specific experience box, 119.71(f) provides a deviation path through AFS-200 for comparable experience.

None of that makes a fractional DO a shortcut around the rule. It means the rule is written around accountability and competence rather than hours in a chair — so a proven DO holding the seat for a defined share of their time, with their duties documented and their authority real, satisfies it the same way a full-time hire does. What matters is that the arrangement is genuine: documented in the manual, notified to the responsible Flight Standards office within the ten days 119.69(e)(3) allows, and backed by someone who is actually reachable when the operation needs a decision.

Four situations account for most engagements, and they are worth naming because they call for different mandates.

• The seat just went empty — A resignation or a termination starts a clock: the vacancy has to be reported to the responsible Flight Standards office within ten days, and the operation cannot run indefinitely without the position filled. An interim DO stops the bleeding while you recruit properly.
• Initial certification — Standing up a new certificate means building the manual system, negotiating op specs and demonstrating a management team the FAA will accept. A DO who has been through certification before compresses that timeline more than any other hire.
• The operation outgrew the arrangement — Plenty of small operators run with a DO who is also the chief pilot and flies the line. That works until it does not — usually at the point where fleet growth or a new op spec authorisation makes the compliance load a real job.
• A findings problem — After an inspection with substantive findings, an experienced DO brought in on a fixed mandate can own the corrective action plan and the follow-through without pulling your permanent leadership off the flying.

A corporate flight department operating under Part 91 has no 119.69 obligation — there is no certificate, so there is no required position and no op spec to name it in. The job, however, is the same job: someone has to own scheduling, crew standards, training currency, risk management, vendor oversight and the budget, and to be the person the principals hold responsible when a trip does not go as planned.

This is where fractional engagement is at its most natural, because there is no regulatory form to satisfy and the only question is whether the operation gets competent leadership. A department flying two aircraft rarely justifies a full-time executive with airline or Part 135 depth. It can very easily justify two days a month of one — enough to build the standards, run the safety and training programme, and be on the phone when something unusual happens.

Part 91K fractional-ownership programmes sit between the two: they are certificated and carry their own management-personnel structure, and they are also among the operations the FAA has opened to voluntary SMS participation. Leaders who have worked inside a 91K programme understand both the programme-management side and the operational-control side, which is a genuinely narrow pool.

Most fractional DO mandates settle into one of three shapes. A retained fractional arrangement gives the operator a defined share of the leader's month on an ongoing basis — the common choice for a small certificate that needs real leadership but not a full salary. An interim mandate is full-time for a fixed term, typically covering a departure or a certification project until a permanent hire is in place. A project mandate is scoped to a deliverable: a certification, a manual rewrite, a corrective action plan, an acquisition integration.

In every shape the documentation work is the same, and it is not optional: the position and its duties go into the manual, the title appears in the operations specifications, and the responsible Flight Standards office is notified of the personnel change within ten days. A leader who has done this before will drive that paperwork themselves rather than leaving it for you to discover.

Flight Level Partners exists to make the search part fast. Every listing states the certifications, the regulatory frameworks and the operations a leader has actually worked in, so you can shortlist against 119.71 on the first pass instead of the third interview.