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.
Nice if they want to make a profit but they shouldn’t need protection for that. If there are enough people willing to conduct such flights without making profits and it meets people’s expectations, then this is how it should be. Obviously, there will be more people offering to fly from A to B without payment than people willing to empty your trash cans free of charge.
Ultimately that should result in a higher level of safety, when the general public is involved.
I am not aware of any safety issues with cost sharing flights. Also I don’t see any pseudo-AOCs. If I purchase myself a nice aircraft and I want to fly more, also to put some of the fixed cost into perspective, I see no problem offering cost sharing flights. As much as I have no problem with car owners working for Uber to make better use of the car. Something that was already extremely common in Russia more than 10 years ago. I think you call it “share economy” today.
PS: Whenever people claim that the “general public” needs protection, they’re 90% wrong.
As a sidenote the only problem I see with the “sharing” economy is that it relies on a vast pool of already existing capital. However if people expect more and more to “share” vs “own” very few if any will invest in creating the actual capital to be shared…
Shorrick, that assumes that the joint use of capital via the share economy replaces exclusively used capital. That might be true to a certain extent but I’d say for the vast majority it enables additional consumption and creates growth.
On the other hand, it is very questionable whether building millions of cars that spend 98% of their life parked somewhere is a sign that we’re at the pinnacle of evolution. For GA aircraft, make that number 99.99%…
The vast majority of Uber customers supposedly rarely ever used taxis before. Same goes for cost sharing flights. A Citation charter customer is most likely not going to pay Peter cost price for using a TB20 instead. Therefore the sharing economy can enable us to make better use of capital and stimulate growth.
conduct such flights without making profits
If it pays for your assets (i.e. owner/operator) then you benefit from it. That’s why I think it’s fair that only direct costs can be shared. Fuel, landing fees mainly.
I am not aware of any safety issues with cost sharing flights.
I don’t believe there are such statistics available (yet), so that’s probably why you aren’t aware of it. ;) There will be statistics of PPL vs. CPL holders, which might be of interest.
“If it pays for your assets (i.e. owner/operator) then you benefit from it. That’s why I think it’s fair that only direct costs can be shared. Fuel, landing fees mainly.”
If we are talking about amortization that benefits the owner / operator, rental hourly fees that pay for the assets (including asset amortization) can be shared fully, to the (indirect) benefit of club members (eg renters). Why would that reasoning not apply in other cases?
There may not be a safety case for making cost sharing only just about viable (as it always has been in the UK) but the regulator has his back against the wall because their main job is public safety i.e. making sure that only AOC operators can do what one might describe as very viable cost sharing 
The difference between the pilot paying €1 and the passengers paying the rest, and public transport, is very small.
Achim has already compared this to Uber. While we’re at it, let’s also question AirBnB. Is that also dodgy? I think it’s not, I think it’s liberal.
This year, I’ve used AirBnB more than hotels for my business trips because I was getting tired of the same old hotels. I’ve saved money by that, met great people (who made a profit from it, too!) and loved it generally. It’s obviously MUCH less save for me than staying in a hotel (that has to adhere to much stricter safety standards in terms of fire protection etc, than any private home) but so far, I survived.
The hotels hate it, of course – as much as the taxi lobby hates uber and, well, AOC holders would hate a flight sharing service like that.
But I want to live in a free world where I and others can decide for themselves if they would like to enjoy the (safety) benefits (and short-comings) of a traditional hotel, taxi, charter flight or rather use a “share-economy”-style service on a private basis, i.e. AirBnB, Uber, or any flight sharing platform that would (hopefully) ever become successful.
I’m sure @Silvaire would agree, if he weren’t so entirely against cost-sharing in the flying scene in the first place.
AirB&B doesn’t need fire etc regs because you don’t have a huge building packed with say 200 rooms, where if a fire breaks out you have a huge problem. In the typical AirB&B place, if it catches fire, you grab your backpack and step outside 
America makes cost sharing very hard. The common purpose test is so strict that almost nobody can demonstrably meet it 100%. And in their (allegedly more than in Europe) litigious society everybody is watching their back on stuff like this. I say “allegedly” because Graham Hill’s estate got cleaned out pretty well over here, and so would yours if you did anything similar.
I’m sure @Silvaire would agree, if he weren’t so entirely against cost-sharing in the flying scene in the first place.
I don’t like thinking about money when I’m thinking about flying, and try to set up my flying so I can avoid it. Right now a more important problem is that one of my planes isn’t getting flown enough, and if I could find somebody I trusted, with 25 hrs in type and 100 tail wheel, they could fly it for the roughly $20/hr price of fuel. Pity you aren’t here and ready to get up to speed in it!
My comment was slightly tongue-in-cheek in that I knew your position on cost sharing in relation to flying, but I also remembered your arguments in earlier discussions and thought you’d be supporting the idea of a liberal market for joint flights as much as for joint car rides or private accommodations, rather than dictating people to use only commercial, licensed operators to save them from their own alleged disability to make informed judgements about the risks they like to take.
Flying for $20/hr sounds too good to be true. ;-)
