I've just read an article in the US AOPA magazine about this - a very American concept rarely seen in Europe.
But I am puzzled as to the benefits to the customer, over a normal syndicate, in the piston GA context.
The fractional setups always seem to have a "management company" but then so will a syndicate, explicitly or implicitly. They also have a booking system, but then so has a syndicate (unless very informal).
I do recall the FARs containing a load of stuff covering fractional ownerships. I am not sure if the maintenance and flight are still under Part 91.
In the UK, there were several SR22 groups which seemed to resemble this. All were N-reg. You bought an entitlement to fly a block of hours per year, and then you paid ~ £250/hr for flying. It was very expensive, but OK for the occasional trip to Le Touquet with a new bird... I believe all of these have recently collapsed, and actually my local one is at the bottom of the English Channel now. These seemed to resemble the Netjets model where you buy an annual hour block and then pay for flying time, and as in the Netjets case the customer does not get involved at all in looking after the plane. With NJ you obviously get the crew thrown in, which is just as well...
Years ago, the UK Socata dealer Air Touring embarked on a "scheme" to offer a fleet of TBM700s on fractional ownership. They said they had the permission of the UK CAA to do it. I am not sure why that might be relevant - unless they were G-reg. I don't even know if this is illegal on an EASA-reg... But the firm went bust shortly afterwards. They claimed to have had 2 or 3 TBMs in the scheme.
Can anyone explain clearly what the point is, in piston GA?
Operationally [not how you pay for it, obviously] a proper fractional ownership programme, with multiple aircraft of the same type, looks more like a rental fleet.
You should get great availability, low maintenance downtime, and professional management to an agreed standard. Also, exiting tends to be easier. While nominally owning a share in a specific aircraft, it operates more like you owning a [smaller] share in the fleet. You would normally fly "your" aircraft, but if that is not available then you would get a different one.
A syndicate has poorer availability [one a/c], more downtime [one a/c], and stories about group disagreements re maintenance / upgrades are legion... and I hear selling a share is hard..
A single-aircraft fractional ownership programme is really like a syndicate, except perhaps for the ability to exit, and someone looking after the aircraft for you [at a cost], depending on the contract.
I'd sign up for a proper high-end IFR tourer [turbo, FIKI] fractional ownership programme immediately, especially if I could exit on known terms. I would have to spend a lot of time finding a like-minded pilot to share an A/C in a syndicate.
Here in Holland I am still the chairman of a non-profit foundation that was created by 20 owners of a Piper Archer 3. They each paid 1/20th of the costs of buying the aircraft, pay all 1/20th of the yearly fixed costs and pay 127,50 euro per hour (wet, block-time) for flying the aircraft. The aircraft is fully IFR equipped, the G430 is up-to-date.
The booking is done through our AeroPlus Calendar/booking system where each pilot can make 5 bookings in advance of each 5 hours per booking (on weekdays) and 3 hours per booking (on weekend days). You can fly as much as you want, but only make 5 reservations in advance. It is also possible to book a longer period for a trip.
The board of the foundation is formed from the members and the board changes from time to time and has to account to the co-owners for the cots they made, etc. The control is done by 1-2 of the members on the books.
See this website for this foundation: www.piperpilots.nl
The issue of availability is there as you cannot fly whenever you want. You have to plan a little. However, especially during the weekdays, the aircraft is available a lot. The weekends are more difficult.
Even though I fly on the Cirrus SR22 Turbo, I still have the participation in this foundation (and still am on their board) and fly regularly the Piper as the costs are half (in distance flown) than that of the Cirrus.
The Piper is well maintained and the pilots are all co-owner of the aircraft and treat the aircraft as such.
What I understood is that there is someone to bring the plane back, while you are away and fly it to pick you up. There was a company with PC12s on AERO this year. To me it sounded like an AOC avoidance scheme.
I wonder why that might be dodgy. If the owner of the share or the "fraction" is not in the plane while somebody working for the management company does the positioning flight (delivery or collection) it's not a problem as far as I can see.
Years ago I used to rent out my TB20 (originally G-reg but later N-reg).
Renting out on G-reg was straightforward legally; you just had to maintain on the Public CofA schedule, which among other things banned any pilot maintenance. But back then I was hangared by a company which would have booted me out of the hangar unless I got them to maintain it, so that was OK... Plus expensive insurance of course (2x).
When it went N-reg, there is no issue as far as the FARs are concerned. You can run Part 91 as normal. But UK airspace law comes into it. I phoned up the Dept for Transport (which in the UK "owns" the policy on N-reg ops, to settle the numerous "pilot forum postings" by certain individuals who repeatedly claimed (but never supported with refs) that you need a "dry lease" to rent out an N-reg. I spoke to the very top man there. He said all that is nonsense (as I suspected) but he was keen to be sure that I was not in the cockpit at the same time a renter was flying it. I don't understand that requirement, and I don't recall understanding it at the time.
but he was keen to be sure that I was not in the cockpit at the same time a renter was flying it.
If you were on-board could you prove that you were not running an air taxi service, could it be classed as air-work by a back door?
I wonder if that applies to G-Reg as well?
If you were on-board could you prove that you were not running an air taxi service, could it be classed as air-work by a back door?
If I logged it as PIC i.e. the renter was a passenger, then somebody could say I was doing that.
I would probably argue that the renter is an idiot, paying me so he can sit in the RHS 
If the renter logs it as PIC then I can't see the problem. If that was illegal, any flight on which you rent a plane from a school, and where anybody who makes money out of the rental (the owner, or any employee of the school e.g. the receptionist) is a passenger, would be illegal.
I wonder if that applies to G-Reg as well?
I think so.
The cases I have read about where somebody got done for alleged illegal charter was where many flights were done in succession.
@ Peter... true, didn't think about it from the hour logging point of view.
I wonder how that works in a mixed group (equity and non-equity) of which I know of 1. How does the non-equity member (i.e. non-owner) fly with an equity member (i.e. part owner)?
I had another thought that maybe it is to do with Insurance/Post-Accident issues... hypothetically, say you let someone fly your TB20, on a rental basis with you in the RHS (I know it will probably never happen - but go with it 
) So the PIC has signed/filed all the paperwork, but on the way the fan stops... what would you do? Let the PIC fly the emergency, or would you take over... then where does the liability lie?
Maybe there was some non-obvious logic within the meeting that decided it, and that has been forever lost.
This popped up on the regular email mailing from IAOPA:
Among the challenges is the fact that some operations which currently are non-commercial could in the future be classified as commercial if nothing is done. For instance fractional ownership where companies own a fraction of an aircraft and where an invoice is submitted from the legal entity owning the aircraft after each use of the aircraft. This was previously covered by the concept of the “customer having control over the operator” which has disappeared with the new Basic Regulation.
I don’t think fractional ownerships are big in Europe, below the turboprop/jet level. Also most of the ones I have seen were N-reg, though of course the N-reg ops are subject to EASA FCL if the operator is EU based. Funnily enough it is shared ops which can most easily arrange for an offshore “operator”…
