The problem in my opinion is political mate; If you succeed, then everyone else is going to do the same thing: - operate under one AOC and share the costs of compliance.
The trouble with that idea from a CASA senior management perspective is one of critical mass - a group of you represent a serious chunk of business and have the financial and legal resources to match CASA. What’s the union chant? “ united (together) we cannot be defeated”. The thought must give senior management nightmares for you can’t push a cooperative around like a bunch of tiny individual operators.
To be fair to CASA, it sounds like your original CASA contacts were helpful, honest and trying to do the best they can for you and the industry.
However, once senior management got wind of your little plan, all hell has broken loose.
It it now sounds to me from what you have written, that you are alleging that CASA is not conducting itself in good faith. This has a legal meaning although i’m not a lawyer but it basically means you both have to be working truthfully. There is also another legal word “estoppel” which means CASA (and you) can’t change your story to suit your current circumstances, but again I am not a lawyer and you need one.
I don’t know but It sounds to me like this matter crept up on CASA senior management. The guys that helped you are in trouble, CASA is now desperately trying to squash you and stick the cork back in the bottle because your idea APTA provides a way for individual businesses to band together and stand up for themselves - which doesn’t sound like it’s what CASA wants.
you might like to think about crowd funding via the internet for some legal, facebook, twitter, etc. couldn’t hurt since you have gone public. Nothing left to loose. What has AOPA said BTW/