International Ferry Pilot

“The days tend to be very long—and most of the food you eat comes out of vending machines,” says Luke Lysen, who founded The Flight Academy in Seattle and specialized in Cirrus ferry flights around the world. “Ferry flying is an ongoing problem-solving exercise where you’re trying to get around air traffic control, customs, and mechanical issues. It’s an exhausting grind, but at the same time, I wouldn’t trade some of those experiences for anything.”

Lysen got into ferry flying unintentionally. In 2005, a flight student with a Cirrus SR20 in Canada wanted to fly his airplane in Spain that summer, and Lysen volunteered to get it there. In the next 15 years, he made more than 30 Atlantic crossings, two Pacific crossings, and flew to South America and Africa.

In 2017, he started flying Cirrus Vision SF50 Jets and took them to customers all over the world.

“I was on a flight from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Oman and got sent way out over the Persian Gulf, about one mile from Iranian airspace,” he said. “I kept wondering if they knew the [Williams FJ33] engine on my airplane was originally designed for a cruise missile.”

Lysen charged a flat fee for aircraft deliveries. If things worked out as planned, he cleared about $1,000 a day. If not, the profit margin could be slim or nonexistent.

The vast majority of Lysen’s ferry trips were made solo, and being alone in the cockpit for days on end, at times, felt like solitary confinement. He said the people he met along the way, however, were almost universally kind and helpful—and sometimes funny.

A ground crew in Thailand thought Lysen, a tall, dark-haired American, looked like Elvis Presley and danced while singing Elvis tunes. A brusque customs official in Russia placed a hard-sided briefcase atop a wing of the new Cirrus SR22 Lysen was ferrying and scowled when he was asked to set it elsewhere. A ground crewman in Oman took notice of Lysen adding oil to his aircraft engine and said he’d never seen a pilot do such a thing himself. A highly organized and impeccably dressed ground crew in Japan was well prepared to fill the fuel tanks and service Lysen’s airplane but wouldn’t let him use the bathroom because it wasn’t part of the contract.

Lysen said ferry pilots are typically divided into two groups: young and enthusiastic pilots seeking to gain flight experience and older pilots who were never quite able to get easier, less risky, better-paying jobs as airline or corporate fliers. He keeps a world map on his office wall with lines plotting the routes of his ferry trips.

“I love the fact that this is part of my story,” he said. “I’m glad I did it, but when the time came, I was ready to hang it up, too.”

[email protected]