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Old 29th Jan 2018, 17:25
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Heathrow Harry
 
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Interesting question - just about every authority just parrots the exact definition without explantaion

https://mckechnie-aviation.eu/2016/0...ft-operations/

punts as follows:-

Clearly managed operations of private aircraft are ‘not available to the public’, but they are ‘performed under a contract between an operator and a customer’ so they will fall within the definition of a commercial operation if the second half of that sentence applies ‘where the [customer] has no control over the operator’. I guess that the rule makers thought the meaning of this sentence was clear when they agreed the text, but it does cause a lot of confusion. To clarify the meaning imagine a large corporation that operates a fleet of jets to fly executives around the world. The corporation will typically have a ‘corporate flight department’ to manage the aircraft and this may be established as a separate legal entity (e.g. a limited company) within the overall corporate structure. When an executive uses one of the company aircraft to travel to a meeting there will be an internal charge within the corporation for the cost of the flight. In this instance the aircraft operator (corporate flight department) is under control of the customer (large corporation) so the flight falls outside the definition of ‘commercial operation’, Corporate aviation can be considered ‘non-commercial’. This type of operation needs to comply with the organisational rules of Part-ORO and the operational rules of Part-NCC.
If the company that operates the jet is not part of the same corporation, but is an external company operating aircraft as a business then clearly the operation is commercial; but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the rules are the same as for charter operators or airlines. The Air Operations Regulation (Regulation 965) provides a definition of commercial air transport:
commercial air transport (CAT) operation’ means an aircraft operation to transport passengers, cargo or mail for remuneration or other valuable consideration’
In the case of managed aircraft operations there typically isn’t any remuneration or valuable consideration for a specific flight. The owner will pay a management charge and cover the costs of the operation but these payments will be due whether the aircraft flies or stays in the hangar, so managed aircraft operations typically do not fall within the definition of commercial air transport and the operators do not need to comply with the commercial air transport operating rules (e.g. Part-CAT).


BUT


While the intention of the rule makers was that managed aircraft operations should fall under the rules for commercial specialised operations there is no guarantee that a particular aviation authority or national court will not interpret the rules differently. The lack of clarity in the rules means that there is endless scope for lawyers to argue over the definitions of ‘operator’ and other relevant terms so an aircraft owner would be well advised to take legal advice before committing to a particular course of action. If you are an aircraft owner choosing a management company then you’ll want to be sure that the company you choose has a good grasp of the regulatory requirements. Not all of them do!
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