Originally Posted by
Mr Proach
Why can't the aviation transport industry adopt an Uber platform and bypass the regulator just like what occurred in the Taxi industry? If nothing else, the advent of Uber proved beyond any doubt that regulators have no legitimacy. Like most regulators, this was a massive institution of people (including extremely well remunerated bureaucrats) who, for decades have controlled the Taxi industry. Then someone creates a programming code for a mobile device to provide an identical publicly available Taxi service which, was allowed to freely operate outside of the exisiting "Taxi" transport regulations. These so called regulators that allowed to this happen most likely walked away with massive (publicly financed) pay outs and have never been held to account for their complicity in what ultimately destroyed the livelihood of thousands of people and their assets.
Interestingly, in the recently well publicised court case "win" against Uber, there was no mention of the regulator's culpability in the whole affair. The reported award will only amount to about 5% of what an individual's taxi plate was worth prior to the proliferation of Uber. Doesn't what happened to a government regulated taxi industry mean that Government regulators/authorities (and their rules) are invalid?
For the EU, I found this in the Annex to Safety Charter non-commercial General Aviation:
EU safety regulations only permit cost-shared flights by private individuals, if the direct cost (i.e. cost directly incurred in relation to the flight, e.g. fuel, airfield charges, rental fee for an aircraft) are shared between all parties, including the pilot. Cost-shared flights shall not have an element of profit. If a flight is not a cost-shared flight in accordance with EU safety regulations, the flight will be qualified as a commercial flight and commercial air operation rules will apply.