South Florida-based charter group Exclusive recently achieved certification under the DCA Access Standard Security Program (DASSP) for its operating company Custom Jet Charters to fly in and out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). General aviation has had restricted access to the airport since the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
The FAA and Transportation Security Administration control DASSP certification. The process involves TSA inspection of crew, passengers, baggage and the aircraft. All departure and arrival times are subject to TSA authorization, and passenger and crew manifests are checked 24 hours before each flight, which has to be from an approved gateway airport. The process also entails FBI background checks for all flight crew, and an armed security officer has to be on board each flight.
“Years of working with DHS, TSA and the Federal Air Marshall service setting up a security program at CJC to comply with all the stringent rules and regulations required for joining the DASSP program was challenging to say the least,” commented Custom Jet Charters vice president Henry Castellanos. “After all the intense vetting and revision to our in-house approved security manual our TSA representative was very pleased to see that we exceeded the U.S. government standard for DASSP security protocol.”