Direct costs include fuel, airfield charges and any aircraft rental fee. Any other costs not directly related to the flight, for example the annual cost of keeping,
maintaining and operating an aircraft, cannot be shared
THAT is discrimination of ownership over rental.
A rental fee for an airplane clearly includes the cost of it’s upkeep. So on a rental airplane the cost can be shared while it can not on one owned? What legal standing has that got?
For starters, I do “bill” myself the standard hourly rate I have calculated for my airplane based on the yearly total cost divided by flight hours. I would like to know how the CAA will deal with sharing the cost of a flight based on this kind of calculation as opposed to a rental fee.
In fact, direct cost does not equal variable cost.
It’s not possible to achieve “regulatory perfection” in the way costs are shared out and which costs are shared out, because a pilot can operate “his” plane via a limited company (a separate legal entity) 100% owned by him and rent it to himself at a rate at which the company makes a profit and then operate the traditional cost sharing based on what he pays to the company.
That is the same thing as him renting a plane from a school and then operating the traditional cost sharing based on what he pays.
I have it in writing from the CAA that this is OK (approx 2003) even though the fact that I am drawing a salary from the company means that actually I am paying less than my minimum share of what at the time was the required equal (or greater) share of the costs.
Nowadays you would find it very hard to find somebody in the CAA who even understands the subtlety of the question, but back then they had some smart people reading emails and letters.
If the above was illegal then anybody working for a flying school, renting a plane from it, and cost sharing a flight, would be breaching the regs (as they then were).
There are other potential issues unfortunately, with a company owned plane, to do with maintenance exemptions. I don’t know if these still apply (G-reg) but recall reading a few years ago that the CAA was clamping down on the practice i.e. if you rent the plane from a company you own 100% you are technically renting and that required a different maintenance regime. Other countries may have similar issues.
I agree that this is not a problem in practice. If you are just normal “cost-sharing” as intended by the regulation (i.e. don’t set up a bogus air taxi service) you can take the “full” cost of the flight and divide that by the persons on board. Nobody will talk about it and nobody will care.
The traditional way to do cost sharing where there may be some ambiguity was to do it only after a successful landing.
But some of the suggestions made after the latest change in the rules amounted to an RPG aimed at the CAA HQ so it is no surprise that they are trying to “clarify” them 
One obvious issue is that if you do something regularly and it happens to breach the rules, the fact that money is handed over only after a flight won’t help you with the insurance claim if you have an accident on a subsequent flight
But the main thing which, on my reading, they are not trying to roll back, is the ability to advertise a cost shared flight. That means that it is no longer necessary to advertise such flights as “seat sharing”. Whether this will help in practice I don’t know, due to many (most?) people not wanting to fly with a complete stranger. I don’t know if any of the numeous seat sharing sites actually worked well.
It looks like they are concerned about abuse of the new rules, especially involving advertising of flights to be cost shared.
Cannot agree more, advertising those flights is so dodgy.
THAT is discrimination of ownership over rental.
No it is preventing pilots to conduct ‘commercial air transport’ in a private manner. Direct costs mean a pilot cannot benefit from the flight, so using the dodgy setup incl. advertising to have your shiny TBM, Diamond or whatever basically paid for in terms of hangarage, maintenance, profcheck costs etc. isn’t going to work. If your own aircraft works out to cost you about 300€ per hour, you can only get perhaps a third of that recovered from ‘sharers’, for the fuel + landing fees, and you cannot get away with just paying €1 and the others pay the rest. Unless you are renting the aircraft.
Cannot agree more, advertising those flights is so dodgy.
I disagree and I am glad Timothy Nathan from PPL/IR sent this “extreme” example to the CAA. Advertising can help to get flights organized. Our airfield is full with aircraft that barely ever fly and virtually never leave the circuit because either owners don’t have the money for more interesting trips or are not motivated to do them on their own. With advertising, they can find others and nice trips and friendships can result.
The EASA rules should also allow internet services like the FAA recently shut down aimed at forming groups for flights.
If I ask my hypothetical car washer whether he would be willing to bring my hypothetical Porsche 911 somewhere in return for fuel and a coffee, I am sure he would agree, seeing this as a great opportunity. In the same way, many private pilots would love to conduct flights either in their own or a rented aircraft when their own cost is mostly their time.
You can’t even operate a successful AOC with a Cessna 421 anymore so why do people think someone offering flights in a PA28 or SR22 could be competing with AOCs?
There is a small market for charter work. Currently this needs a twin to be legal and you need an A-to-B AOC. Also, an AOC allows the operator to show the piece of paper and get duty free avgas just about anywhere, even on flights where the AOC is not being operated. So AOC holders are protective of their hard paid for privilege.
AOC busting is not a big thing (because there isn’t much demand except for specific events and you can’t advertise it openly) but there have been a few visible cases of e.g. somebody doing a dozen flights to some race or other event, in a helicopter. Rumour has it that Le Mans is a good place for the inspectors to hang out.
I agree that being able to advertise openly should stimulate GA activity. Whether it actually does depends on so much… I think one still needs to be doing it in the context of some sort of club (loosely speaking – could be a site like EuroGA) because few people want to fly with total strangers, a lot of people who turn up will be too big / too heavy / whatever so some prior familiarisation is needed to make it work.
No it is preventing pilots to conduct ‘commercial air transport’ in a private manner. Direct costs mean a pilot cannot benefit from the flight, so using the dodgy setup incl. advertising to have your shiny TBM, Diamond or whatever basically paid for in terms of hangarage, maintenance, profcheck costs etc. isn’t going to work. If your own aircraft works out to cost you about 300€ per hour, you can only get perhaps a third of that recovered from ‘sharers’, for the fuel + landing fees, and you cannot get away with just paying €1 and the others pay the rest. Unless you are renting the aircraft.
Archie,
ok, so it is ok if a renter does exactly that but an owner not?
The hourly rate of a rented airplane can be fully shared. That rental rate includes annual, hangarage the lot plus a profit even for the rental agent.
As a private owner, if I do the same thing, calculate my hourly cost on the basis of my yearly outlay divided by the numbers, that does not mean I make a profit. But I am not allowed to share the same way?
I am sorry, that has nothing to do with advertizing or anything. But it is just unfair. Thankfully it is handled differently in Switzerland.
I disagree and I am glad Timothy Nathan from PPL/IR sent this “extreme” example to the CAA. Advertising can help to get flights organized … With advertising, they can find others and nice trips and friendships can result.
That is perhaps true, but his ad doesn’t show the intent to make friendships. The intent is to sell flights, keep his aircraft/logbook running. That he doesn’t make a profit is a moot point as far as I’m concerned. There are others (AOC holders) who want to make a profit out of that, however they need to and will comply with the legal requirements for that. Ultimately that should result in a higher level of safety, when the general public is involved.
Archie, ok, so it is ok if a renter does exactly that but an owner not?
Sure, he rents out his aircraft, doesn’t he? Why should he have to chip in if someone else wants to use his aircraft?
