Originally Posted by
runway30
I knew this would be controversial and it was deliberately so. When an aircraft is being hired out to a different company every day does the PIC replicate those functions that would normally be provided by a corporate flight department? If the PIC is the only one undertaking those functions for multiple companies, is he not operating an air carrier without an AOC?
What I was getting at is in the case of a private flight the PIC is the final authority for operating the flight (though not necessarily the only person with operational control responsibility, eg the owner if different). Whereas in the case of a legitimate commercial charter, those responsible for operational control are management listed in the ops manual (of course the PIC might happen to be one of them). The distinction is that for the line charter pilot there has to be some authorisation from management to do the flight as part of the extra checks and measures on professional charter companies.