A few of us at my place of work hold flying licenses, two hold a PPL and one a CPL.
Our boss tried his hand at rotary flying once and is still a very keen 'aviator'. As such he has asked us if we could fly our colleages to business meetings within the UK (using the aircraft we hire) as this would save money on overnight stays and is considerably quicker than going by road.
For example, one trip might be to the Isle of Man to speak with a client and then to return within the same day. Hiring the clubs a/c for the day.
Just wondering as to the legalities of such trips relative to the licenses held. 'Flying for renumeration', 'CPL flying commercial ops only if an AOC is in place' etc etc sprang to mind as we considered the options. Is the water as murky or the slope as slippery as we think?
You mention you rent these planes.
If your company rents the planes and issues them to you FOC, then you can fly on the company business, carrying company mates and goods, on a PPL.
And you can be paid as normal for your time, while flying.
Not a penny associated with the plane will pass through your hands. That's important.
This is neater than you renting the plane and then getting reimbursed by the company, which raises possible issues with both HMRC and various bits of the ANO.
The practicalities of flying 'on business' are a different matter.
"Business" could mean anything from meeting tame parties like suppliers (where it doesn't matter if you get delayed or cannot turn up on a given day) all the way through to formal initial customer visits where you absolutely have to be there.
The former you can do easily enough in some rented wreckage. The latter needs a much better mission capability than that. I have an IR and a pretty capable IFR tourer and can easily do supplier visits, conferences etc but serious customer visits I have rarely done, although I would have done more of them had I been based at an airport with an ILS.
An IR helps, but you also need a more advanced plane to use it properly. Also, there are times when a flight is doable low level ("VFR") but the kind of high altitude weather you get into with an IR can be more hazardous.
The CPL is a redherring in this case; it is applicable only if the pilot is contractually required to fly (and is not given the choice of other means of travel).
Finally, the IOM suffers from utterly sh*****y weather. I recall trying to get there last year, and it was below IFR minima every Friday for four weeks. The 5th time I made it... They pay a lot less tax, which is just as well
