Ferry flying

Ferry flying refers to delivery flights for the purpose of returning an aircraft to base, delivering a new aircraft from its place of manufacture to its customer, moving an aircraft from one base of operations to another or moving an aircraft to or from a maintenance facility for repairs, overhaul or other work.

An aircraft may need to be moved without passengers from one airport to another at the end of that day's operations in order to satisfy the next day's timetable – these are known as positioning flights, although strictly speaking these are still a type of ferry flight. Positioning flights may also be necessary following a major weather event or other similar disruption which causes multiple cancellations across an airline's network resulting in many aircraft and crew being 'out of position' for normal operations; the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull or the mass evacuation of US airspace following the 9/11 attacks being significant examples of this. Some airlines permit fare-paying passengers to travel on positioning flights.

A ferry permit is a written authorization issued by a National Airworthiness Authority to move a non-airworthy civil aircraft from its present location to a maintenance facility to be inspected, repaired and returned to an airworthy state.

One famous ferry pilot was Louise Sacchi, who flew single- and multi-engine planes 340 times across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, breaking several records in the process.

...
Wikipedia