Michael Barber is the man you call when you need deals closed, jets sold, and acquisitions perfected; period. As Managing Director & Vice President of Sales Operations at jetAVIVA, and one of fewer than 200 IADA Certified Brokers worldwide, Michael is a force in the business aviation industry. Since joining jetAVIVA in 2025, he has transformed the Challenger 300/350/3500 market into his personal runway; leading sales operations, mentoring the next generation of researchers, and representing clients with a fiduciary standard that sets the bar across the industry. Michael’s track record speaks for itself. He was Leviate Air Group’s Top Producer in 2023, built the back end of boutique consulting firms before that, and has closed transactions with clients on six of the seven continents. His career is a masterclass in international negotiation, strategy, and execution, earning him a reputation as both a market expert and a trusted advisor. But, Michael isn’t just about jets, he’s about risk, reward, and control. With more than 20 years in emergency services, he knows how to perform under pressure. From leading the largest ski patrol on the East Coast to a decorated career as a Firefighter/Medic, he has spent his life turning high-stakes situations into controlled victories. When he’s not closing deals or commanding the room, Michael lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and their two children. On Sundays, you’ll find him at the polo fields or exploring Virginia’s wine country. But, make no mistake, his work and life are proof that success isn’t an accident. It’s the result of preparation, determination, and knowing when to take the shot.
PrivateJetBS | What IADA Accreditation Actually Means — And Why It Should Matter to You
PrivateJetBS | Edition 32 What IADA Accreditation Actually Means
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The International Aircraft Dealers Association is the preeminent accreditation body in business aviation brokerage. It was founded on a simple premise: the pre-owned aircraft market needed a standard buyers and sellers could trust — dealers and brokers who meet IADA Standards across transaction volume, ethics, transparency and financial qualification. IADA's mission is to set the global standard for business aircraft transactions
IADA is not a trade group where you pay dues and get a logo. It is an accreditation organization with rigorous entry standards, ongoing compliance requirements, and the ability to revoke membership for violations of its code of ethics and professional standards.
There are currently 62 IADA Accredited Dealers worldwide, represented by 235 brokers who hold the IADA Certified Broker designation.
In a global industry where anyone with a phone and a LinkedIn profile can call themselves an aircraft broker, that number tells you something important about the bar.
Words versus standards
Words get thrown around loosely, so let's define them.
An Aircraft Broker is an individual who initiates and facilitates aircraft transactions and service agreements. An Aircraft Dealer is an organization whose primary business is the purchase, sale, resale, and listing of aircraft. Neither of those, on their own, means anything beyond a job description.
Accreditation: a rigorous process of measuring an organization against a pre-specified set of standards.
Run that process on a Aircraft Dealer, and you get an IADA Accredited Dealer — one that has met, and continues to meet, those standards. Run the equivalent process on an individual who works for an Accredited Dealer, and you get an IADA Certified Broker — someone who has passed the IADA Certified Aircraft Broker Examination and continues to maintain that certification through recertification credits.
The word "continues" is doing the work in both definitions. This isn't a credential you earn once and coast on.
What Accreditation Actually Requires
Getting accredited is not a formality. It is a process — and a demanding one.
Financial accountability. IADA member dealers are required to maintain financial practices that protect client funds. Escrow requirements. Transparency in how deposits and transaction funds are handled. This matters because in an aircraft transaction, significant sums of money move through the deal, often before the aircraft has changed hands. The structural protections around those funds are not uniform across the industry. IADA accreditation means those protections exist and are verifiable.
Ethical standards. IADA members are bound by a Code of Ethics that governs how they represent clients, how they disclose conflicts of interest, how they handle competing obligations in a transaction, and how they deal with the other parties in a deal. Violations of that code are not self-policed. They are reported, reviewed, and acted upon by the organization.
Transaction volume and experience. IADA accreditation is not available to brokers who are new to the industry. It requires demonstrated transaction history - real deals, real volume, real experience in the market. The accreditation reflects proven competence, not just someone’s intention.
Ongoing compliance. Accreditation is not a one-time achievement, it is completed annually. IADA members are subject to ongoing compliance reviews. The standard that earns the accreditation is the standard that must be maintained to keep it.
The same logic applies to the individual broker. IADA Certified Brokers earn the credential by passing a written exam covering aircraft transactions, contracts, operations, finance, marketing, and ethics, and that knowledge has to stay current through continuing education, with recertification required every five years.
This isn't paperwork. It's the mechanism that keeps the badge meaning something. A dealer can lose accreditation. A broker can lose certification. Neither credential is permanent, and neither was ever supposed to be. The market doesn't reward people for what they knew five years ago — it rewards people who kept showing up to the standard.
Industry transparency commitments. IADA members contribute to and operate within data-sharing and market transparency frameworks that benefit the industry as a whole. This is part of why IADA-accredited dealers, who represent roughly 17% of pre-owned dealers worldwide, account for approximately 50% of global pre-owned transaction volume. The market trusts the standard.
What It Means in a Transaction
Let me be specific about where accreditation actually shows up — not as a credential on a business card, but as a material difference in how a deal is handled.
Escrow protection. When you wire a deposit into escrow as part of an LOI, the question of who controls that money, and under what conditions it is refundable, is one of the most consequential structural questions in the transaction. An IADA-accredited dealer operates within financial standards that protect those funds. A non-accredited broker operates within whatever ethical framework they happen to maintain. Ask the question early!
Conflict disclosure. In aircraft transactions, conflicts of interest are common. A broker who has a relationship with the seller. A management company with a financial stake in the aircraft. A co-broker arrangement where incentives are split in ways that don't align with your interests. IADA standards require that these conflicts be disclosed. That disclosure requirement is not universal in the broader brokerage market.
Recourse. If something goes wrong in a transaction — if a broker misrepresents an aircraft, mishandles funds, fails to disclose a material fact, or violates the terms of a representation agreement — your recourse against a non-accredited broker is largely limited to civil litigation. Your recourse against an IADA member includes reporting to the organization, which has the ability to investigate, sanction, and revoke the member's accreditation. That is not a trivial distinction when seven to twenty-five million dollars is on the table.
Professionalism at the table. This one is harder to quantify but real. When an IADA broker is on both sides of a transaction, the shared framework creates a baseline of professional conduct that reduces friction, accelerates resolution, and keeps deals moving when findings or negotiations get difficult. The industry's most complex transactions - cross-border deals, fleet transactions, simultaneous buy-sell structures - are disproportionately handled by IADA members because both sides of the table know what to expect from each other.
What the NextGen Committee Does
I serve as Vice Chair of the IADA NextGen Committee. Let’s talk about what that means.
The NextGen Committee is the arm of IADA dedicated to developing the next generation of business aviation professionals. Not just brokers. Researchers, transaction coordinators, aviation attorneys, CPAs, MRO professionals, and the other specialists whose work makes this industry function at the highest level.
The committee is composed of members who are all under the age of 40, working together to develop educational programming, build mentorship frameworks, and create professional development resources for the people entering this industry who want to do it right. It is aimed at the people who want to build careers on the same foundation of ethics, accountability, and competency that IADA accreditation represents.
I care about this work because I came into this industry through an unconventional path — emergency services, ski patrol, two decades of high-stakes environments before I ever closed an aircraft transaction. What I learned in those environments is that the professionals who operate with the highest standards, no matter their industry, are never the ones who were handed the credential. They are the ones who earned it, understood what it demanded, and chose to hold themselves to it even when no one was watching.
That is what we are trying to build in the next generation of aviation professionals. And it is why the standard matters. It is not just for the buyers and sellers who benefit from it, but for the industry itself.
How to Use This Information
You are probably not going to memorize the IADA accreditation standards before your next aircraft transaction. That's not the point of this edition.
The point is this: when you are evaluating brokers — whether for a purchase, a sale, or a market intelligence conversation — ask the question.
Is your firm an IADA Accredited Dealer?
Are you working with an IADA Certified Broker?
Those questions, and the answers to them, will tell you more about the professional standing of the company and person across the table than any amount of marketing material, LinkedIn credentials, or transaction claims.
A Certified Broker will answer immediately. They will tell you what the accreditation & certification mean and why they pursued it.
A broker who isn't Certified will often explain why accreditation isn't important, why the standard is arbitrary, why their track record speaks for itself without any third-party verification.
Pay attention to that answer. It tells you exactly what you need to know. They may live up to a high moral and ethical standard, with decades of experience in the industry, but then ask: why are they not a member of IADA.
The Bottom Line
In a global market where the pre-owned business aviation industry transacts tens of billions of dollars annually — where buyers and sellers routinely move sums between $3M and $75M in a single transaction, often with minimal legal infrastructure compared to other asset classes of similar magnitude — 300 certified professionals is a very small number.
The standard exists because the industry needed it. The buyers who understand it use it. The ones who don't sometimes find out why it mattered after the fact.
You now know what it means.
Use that knowledge accordingly.
Trust the Process, Not the Promises.™
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Michael Barber is the man you call when you need deals closed, jets sold, and acquisitions perfected; period. As Managing Director & Vice President of Sales Operations at jetAVIVA, and one of fewer than 200 IADA Certified Brokers worldwide, Michael is a force in the business aviation industry. Since joining jetAVIVA in 2025, he has transformed the Challenger 300/350/3500 market into his personal runway; leading sales operations, mentoring the next generation of researchers, and representing clients with a fiduciary standard that sets the bar across the industry. Michael’s track record speaks for itself. He was Leviate Air Group’s Top Producer in 2023, built the back end of boutique consulting firms before that, and has closed transactions with clients on six of the seven continents. His career is a masterclass in international negotiation, strategy, and execution, earning him a reputation as both a market expert and a trusted advisor. But, Michael isn’t just about jets, he’s about risk, reward, and control. With more than 20 years in emergency services, he knows how to perform under pressure. From leading the largest ski patrol on the East Coast to a decorated career as a Firefighter/Medic, he has spent his life turning high-stakes situations into controlled victories. When he’s not closing deals or commanding the room, Michael lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and their two children. On Sundays, you’ll find him at the polo fields or exploring Virginia’s wine country. But, make no mistake, his work and life are proof that success isn’t an accident. It’s the result of preparation, determination, and knowing when to take the shot.