LeSving, if with “quasi-commercial activity” you are referring to the “Introductory flights”, that is something that has existed in France for ages and may have been introduced in OPS to accommodate the French aeroclubs and DGAC. Hence DGAC are not fighting that part of the regulations.
No. According to the new regulations aero-clubs can do sightseeing trips for profit. The requirement is that the start and landing is at the same field, and that the profit does not leave the club.
Introductory flights, towing, short trips, well just about anything has been done for ages. All of it can be done within the concept of cost sharing, and this leads to no problems, it’s a simple concept that people “get”. It is also simple legally. With this new regulation, it doesn’t need to be cost sharing, it can be done for profit. A club can make money by flying for profit. How is this supposed to be handled legally if/when someone with loads of money hires top layers and make a case for a lost daughter?
LeSving wrote:
No. According to the new regulations aero-clubs can do sightseeing trips for profit. The requirement is that the start and landing is at the same field, and that the profit does not leave the club.
What do you mean by “No”?
Yes. This has been legal in France for a long time.
Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing, here is how “Air Operations” defines “Introductory flights”:
(9) ‘introductory flight’ means any flight against remuneration or other valuable consideration consisting of an air tour of short duration, offered by an approved training organisation or an organisation created with the aim of promoting aerial sport or leisure aviation, for the purpose of attracting new trainees or new members;
Operations that can be conducted under Part-NCO (Annex VII):
(a) cost-shared flights by private individuals, on the condition that the direct cost is shared by all the occupants of the aircraft, pilot included and the number of persons sharing the direct costs is limited to six;
(b) competition flights or flying displays, on the condition that the remuneration or any valuable consideration given for such flights is limited to recovery of direct costs and a proportionate contribution to annual costs, as well as prizes of no more than a value specified by the competent authority;
(c) introductory flights, parachute dropping, sailplane towing or aerobatic flights performed either by a training organisation having its principal place of business in a Member State and approved in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011, or by an organisation created with the aim of promoting aerial sport or leisure aviation, on the condition that the aircraft is operated by the organisation on the basis of ownership or dry lease, that the flight does not generate profits distributed outside of the organisation, and that whenever non-members of the organisation are involved, such flights represent only a marginal activity of the organisation.
And then Part-NCO:
NCO.GEN.103 Introductory flights
(a) start and end at the same aerodrome or operating site, except for balloons and sailplanes;
As is the case in other areas of EASA regulations, it is somewhat vague. What is a “short duration”?
This has been legal in France for a long time. According to the current French regulations the flight can be max 30 minutes, the pilot needs to have 30 hours of recent experience and been subject to a medical examination in the 12 months preceeding the flight. The pilot does not pay a dime (i.e. it is not cost sharing). The aeroclub can make a profit and can even advertise the flights.
All of it can be done within the concept of cost sharing,
The cost sharing concept means the pilot pays a share of the cost 
Even though the Norwegian regulations may not have made this distinction, Part-NCO clearly makes a distinction between cost sharing on one hand, and introductory flights, paradropping and sailplane towing on the other.
Peter wrote:
The main limiting factor on the activity growing rapidly is that most people won’t fly with just anybody they met on a “passenger dating site” (the passengers could turn out to be
I don’t think the problem is passengers not finding “willing” pilots. The limiting factor is pilots not finding passengers.
The most serious/active/decently done platform that was launched in Germany this year, flyt.club, has had a good share of interesting flights offered (and I have offered quite a few) but they admit themselves that the percentage of actually conducted flights (and thus income for the platform) “could be improved”. From my advertised flights, only once did I get a response and took a nice couple on a local tour. And this is a platform that has received a fair amount of media attention.
Regarding the law-making, all those people need to get their act together and realize that times are changing. It’s always the same story/pattern: AirBnB vs. hotels, Uber and private car ride sharing platforms vs. taxi concessions, etc. There is always a lobby organization that points out the “risks” of the new “share-economy” style offerings. Incidentally, those organizations usually have their own interest in mind and want their industry to remain as closely regulated as it has been – which is comfortable enough for those within the system.
But people in 2015 don’t want the nanny state to make that decision for them. I want to stay in a nice hotel if I see fit, but at other times, I’ll happily book an AirBnB apartment and I give a f* about less strict fire prevention regulations for private homes and bla bla blub. And of course the taxi driver has worked hard and studied all the streets in the city and has a “medical” but with GPS on my phone nowadays, I’m equally happy to drive with anyone else and I willingly take the risk that the driver may just pass out because he hasn’t undergone any medical checks before driving me around.
There is simply no valid reason why cost sharing of flights should be prohibited while cost sharing for car rides is perfectly okay.
AFAIK cost sharing was never prohibited, in the same way as car sharing was never prohibited. What has happened, obviously made possible via the internet even though the regs don’t actually say that, is much easier matching between the pilot/driver and the passengers.
It was bound to happen eventually, and the old restrictive business models were going to get demolished. This has happened in the last few years in other areas e.g. nobody reads industrial magazines anymore, so a lot of products have nowhere to advertise. Google owns the world but it’s useful only if somebody does a search. It’s no good for giving people ideas or pushing something totally new.
The old €50/15mins taxi rides will not be around for much longer, though probably taxi drivers will continue to “own” the airport runs on which we pilots get ripped off.
IMHO the multitude of flight sharing websites which have popped up have just rubbed the noses of the CAAs in it, and they don’t like it.
The purpose of such press releases and “safety reminders” are always the same: A CAA doesn’t like something but can’t really do anything about it so they formulate some kind of a warning to scare people into submission.
At the moment we are far away from CAA’s implementing EASA rules and rulings to the letter, quite a few are trying hard to circumnativate them and keeping their pet peeves active in their realms, be it by delaying implementation (as Germany did with the CBIR) or the current Swiss anti “on conditon” strive. What has to happen there is for EASA to relentlessly prosecute those CAA’s which violate valid European laws or, as a final solution, disband the local CAA’s into EASA branch offices if offences continue.
disband the local CAA’s into EASA branch offices if offences continue.
Hear, hear! Next after the NCAAs we’ll take care of the national governments which will be relegated to regional authorities. Bundesrepublik Europa!
Well, you can’t have it both ways. Either we have a unified aviation authority which has the power to overrule the national CAA’s or we don’t. If the national CAA’s don’t play ball, then there are two options: Either we forget the unified aviation authority and go back to the national CAA’s and national particularities just as it was under JAR or before or the CAA’s get forced to accept EASA rules by the letter.
Obviously the latter does not work at the moment as several CAA’s are rebelling and not complying. So what do we want. Before the Ky rule of EASA, people were justifyably shouting for EASA to be disbanded, now that we have a GA friendly director, people can’t have EASA rules imposed fast enough.
It will be difficult to see what is better. As fast as we had a GA friendly administration, that can change very fast if Ky gets replaced by an anti GA guy. It is obvious that the pro GA stance of Ky and his administration is salt in the eyes of quite a few national CAA’s who I expect are looking very hard into a way of getting rid of Ky or at least have him replaced by a hardliner after his term runs out. So it is a choice between the devil and beelzebub really.
There is no “EU police” and “EU prosecution” and hopefully there never will be, due to the poor quality of much EU law drafting.
And all the time criminal law enforcement is done nationally, the national CAAs will be doing what they are doing. Some may get “sorted” by walking in with a lawyer, and this has happened in the UK numerous times, but I suspect in some countries nobody is willing to do that because of fear of repercussions. I have been told by several people familiar with the situation that the DGAC will stab you in the back at the next opportunity if you did that. This could be FUD but given who told me, I doubt it. What I don’t doubt is that the DGAC’s ability to do that will be reduced over time because e.g. you can now get revalidation flights done anywhere in the EU. I recall hearing that even FI revals can be done outside France. That leaves the DGAC with few options to get back at you. I suppose aircraft owners still need to be very careful. Do people still need a French medical?
Peter,
actually what I read was that EASA threatened Germany with the European Court unless they would get their act together in the issue of the CBIR. I did not follow up on this, but there were some articles about the non-compliance with EASA rules by Germany in Pilot und Flugzeug. (Article in German)
Seems this is still ongoing and the outcome will be interesting as it will basically determine if EASA actually is the sole authority or not. If not, expect each and every CAA to start goldplating their pet peeves until we get to the same situation where we were before even JAR.
