Can I call up someone who owns a Gulfstream, pay him a couple grand, and then pay a pilot to fly me and some friends in it, all without any AOC structure involved?
Assuming it’s two invoices and all the tax & insurance is paid 
it should be legal under EASA rules but it seems illegal under DGAC rules: the court battle is still raging…what I understand at the moment they use “other tools” against “grey charter”: missing maintenance, expired papers, auditing schools, inspecting operations…you will find plenty there without even talking about AOC or CPL !
This was one trigger: BEA raised alarm and BGTA are taking load of names
https://www.bea.aero/fileadmin/user_upload/BEA2019-0041.pdf
Even for an “easy case” like Sala crash, all what CAA come up with was “endangering aircraft”…
There is nothing in the regulations that speaks about the pilot being “contractually bound” (or not).
There may not be but given that a court will need to decide whether something was legal or not, it will do it on the facts before it (well, in a normally functioning justice system; not a kangaroo court which some countries have) and the degree of choice the pilot has in the travel on the company’s business pretty well determines the difference between
Much EU law is unclear in practice. Sometimes deliberately (a difficult area, so FUD creation is the only way) and sometimes due to incompetence (one UK barrister told me this is pretty common and is due to a lack of drafting expertise).
If you want a little challenge, find me an EU reg which tells me whether a flying school employee, renting a plane from the school, is exceeding the cost sharing % – because he is also getting paid by the school and is thus getting a bit of a recovery on the rental paid I asked that Q of the UK CAA, c. 2003 i.e. in the days when they still had somebody who understood the Q, and got an answer, but you won’t find that in anything drafted in Brussels or Cologne
and all the tax & insurance is paid
Irrelevant.
all what CAA come up with was “endangering aircraft”…
Most likely the reason the wreckage was not retrieved was because it might show maintenance issues, and since in Europe the CAAs collect licensing money from the maint business, that might be an undesirable thing when you just want to bust somebody for illegal charter 
Peter wrote:
but you won’t find that in anything drafted in Brussels or Cologne
You obviously didn’t find that in anything drafted in London either, as you had to ask! (And you complain about “UK bashing”)
Well, you implied that EU regs on this are crystal clear (I believe that’s the current term in vogue) so I challenged you to find the ones for another aspect.
You can’t have it both ways
The regs are indeed clear but only for the largest areas. And anybody doing fully official AOC charters will know what they need to do to keep the inspecting CAA happy, and anybody doing “other kinds” of charters will know how to avoid getting busted
BTW, this thread deals with another question from further back on whether one can fly a jet etc on just a CPL/IR.
Yes,
Renting a plane is possible. As it has been said here in some posts, it’s the way most corporate flights happen.
Keys:
- Company/individual A rents the a/c to company individual B.
-B can do with the a/c whatever he/she wants. Even put at his yard for decorating.
-A stated in the contract the a/c is fully serviceable, it includes insurance, etc…and if B wishes to fly, the pilot must be a CPL, with 1000h, 50h on class, etc…
-B hires a freelance pilot (the pilot must be registered as freelance) that complies this requirements and pays him to fly the a/c.
-There are two separate bills. One for the rental, one for the “piloting” services.
In some CAA, a lease (or rental) requires notification or even approval. What’s another key then? That most CAA don’t require NCO (non-complex a/c) to go through this process so the rental is just a private contract between A and B.
It would be similar to road transport:
-I hire a taxi to go from Madrid to Barcelona. This taxi must be registered an the driver must be registered and in posession of a taxi licence.
-I rent a car and then a find a driver (that complies with the rent acar t&c’s) that drives me to my destination.
The only difference in the latter is that in aviation you must be a “pro” pilot (CPL).
Regards
-B can do with the a/c whatever he/she wants.
No they can’t, if that were the case they could offer third parties fares with unqualified flight crews.
No they can’t, if that were the case they could offer third parties fares with unqualified flight crews.
You are right. I meant outside “aeronautical activities”.
There are two separate bills. One for the rental, one for the “piloting” services.
I think that is the key thing here, issuing two bills and two contracts (vs issuing one bill and one contact), you could argue it’s just the format but it makes a huge difference to roles & responsibilities and compliance
The DGAC has always been suspicious of flight sharing platforms such as Wingly.
It held out against this sort of flight/cost sharing until it came to an agreement with Wingly.
Part of this IIUC was that potential “passengers” should be made aware that such flights did not carry the same back up, pilot experience, insurances etc as a flight via a sheduled air transport, with tickets, from CAT company.
In the BEA report @Ibra posted, it makes the point that the passengers/customers in this case were under the impression that the flight was underscored by AirFrance/KLM. And asked the question " would the passenger who booked the flight have still booked the flight if s/he did not have that perception.?
It’s conclusions suggest that the DSAC and the transport Gendarmes (GAT) should be more vigilant in their approach to cost sharing and/or air charter in this sort of manner.
This has the potential to be bad news for all GA travelling in France, even for those who never go anywhere near these types of commercial operations.
gallois wrote:
This has the potential to be bad news for all GA travelling in France, even for those who never go anywhere near these types of commercial operations.
In what sense?
