The Business of Getting People Out
I was having breakfast in Los Cabos when everything started to kick off.
El Mencho had just been captured and killed. If you know Mexico, you understood what that news meant and what was likely to follow. The restaurant I was in belongs to a close partner of mine who handles ground security across the region. Within an hour, it had quietly transformed from a breakfast spot into something closer to a crisis centre. The close protection officers at the table were on edge in a way I had not seen before. At some point, long arms discreetly appeared behind the bar. Not a dramatic gesture. Just a quiet preparation for whatever might follow.
My phone had not stopped ringing.
The calls were all about Mexico. Clients, brokers, contacts, everyone trying to understand whether the violence would spread and if we could get them out. Los Cabos sits on the edge of the Pacific, one of the most visually calm places on earth. Sitting there, ocean in front of me, operatives on guard, phone going off continuously. That contrast is difficult to explain to someone who has not experienced it.
Why this is no longer a specialist conversation
Evacuation flights have always existed at the edge of what most charter operators are willing to do. The complexity is real, the margins are unpredictable, and the liability exposure is significant. Most companies quite reasonably decide it is not worth the effort when there is a steady pipeline of business and leisure clients whose biggest concern is whether the catering reflects their preferences. I understand that position entirely.
Until recently, the clients who understood this were a specific group. People who regularly moved through markets others avoided, who had already thought about what an exit looks like before they arrived. It was not a conversation that reached further than that.
But something shifted within just a few days of the El Mencho/ Jalisco New Generation Cartel chaos.
When the US and Israel struck Iranian territory in late February 2026, Tehran responded with an unprecedented wave of missiles and drones across the Gulf. For the first time in history, every Gulf Cooperation Council state was targeted by the same actor within 24 hours. On the first day of the conflict alone, Iran attacked the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. By the second day, the strikes had expanded to include Oman and Saudi Arabia. By early April, UAE air defences had engaged nearly 500 ballistic missiles, over 2,000 drones, and more than 20 cruise missiles.
The reason this landed differently to other conflicts is straightforward. These are not places that exist at the edge of most people's awareness. They are places people visit, places people live, places people have family. The friend in Dubai, the colleague in Doha, the relative who moved to Abu Dhabi three years ago. All of a sudden evacuation was not an abstract concern for people operating in difficult markets. It was personal.
The practical consequence was that tens of thousands of people across the region needed to leave, and they needed to leave quickly. We were handling multiple private jet charters and larger airliner requests moving hundreds of people out of Muscat and Riyadh simultaneously. The phones did not stop.
What I noticed was that a lot of people who had never thought seriously about evacuation logistics suddenly understood, for the first time, that getting out is not simply a matter of booking a flight.
What most people do not account for
The insurance problem is where most operations fall apart before they begin. During the chaos that followed El Mencho's death, we had a client group who had identified the right aircraft for their mission. The aircraft was suitable, the timing was right, the routing made sense. Then the insurers declined to cover the flight. Not because the operation was impossible, but because of a classification issue. There was genuine ambiguity about whether what was unfolding across Mexico constituted a conflict zone scenario or civil unrest. Each classification carries different policy implications, and insurers do not move quickly when they are uncertain.
Most operators would have stopped there.
We pulled a connection through one of our partners to get the relevant country's embassy, in the insurer's governing jurisdiction, to write a formal letter clarifying the situation.
That letter provided the insurer with the clarity they needed to proceed. It took time, it required relationships most people in this business do not have, and it is exactly the kind of thing that does not appear on any standard checklist. The flight went ahead.
That is one example. The insurance layer is only part of it.
The operational reality
Aircraft surcharges. When an aircraft owner agrees to position their asset into or near a conflict zone, they are taking on risk that standard charter rates do not reflect. Airframe exposure, crew welfare, and the possibility that the aircraft cannot leave on schedule all factor into the pricing. Crew danger pay is a separate negotiation. If a client has not budgeted for this, the conversation becomes difficult at exactly the moment when there is no time for a difficult conversation.
Tail numbers. This is a detail that most people outside of the industry would not think about. Certain aircraft registrations carry weight when applying for permits or navigating airspace in politically complex environments. Some registrations historically receive faster authorisation. Others attract scrutiny. In certain situations, a tail number associated with a particular operator, country of registration, or ownership structure can complicate an otherwise straightforward clearance request. Insurers sometimes price accordingly. Choosing the right aircraft is not purely a matter of range and capacity.
Local authorities and airport access. In a crisis, the assumption that an airport will be operating normally is often wrong. Hours change. Slots are reallocated. Ground handlers disappear or deprioritise private movements in favour of military or government operations. Getting a flight in or out requires relationships on the ground people who can make a call to the right authority, who know when a slot is genuinely closed versus when it can be negotiated, and who understand that the official answer and the operational answer are not always the same thing.
Intelligence. The closest preferred airport is not always the closest usable airport. Real-time situational awareness. What is actually happening on the ground versus what is being reported is what separates a clean operation from one that fails at the last stage. During a fast-moving situation, that gap between perception and reality can be the difference between a client reaching safety and a client sitting on a tarmac waiting for clearance that never comes.
The part that stays with you
I still enjoy the leisure and business side of this industry. There is real satisfaction in a well-executed trip, a client who arrives refreshed, an operation that runs without friction. But it does not compare to this.
When someone calls because they genuinely do not know if they are going to get out, and you find a way through the insurance refusal, the permit complication, the closed airport, the unavailable ground handler - and they board that flight - the satisfaction is of a different order entirely. The family member on the other end of a phone, waiting for confirmation that their person is airborne. That call, when it comes, means something.
The honest truth is that for some of these clients, the outcome would have been different without this call. Not because no one else in the industry is capable, but because most of them decided long ago that this category of work was not worth the complexity. I made a different decision.
I am glad I did.
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