I think you miss the point.
By that definition passengers in your car are clients, your wife sitting next to you is a client. You are ulitmately responsible for their safety and could just as easily kill them through your neglect. By all means tell your wife she is a client next time you take her for a ride down town or better still if she spots you with your girlfriend you can tell her "never mind I was only with a client giving her a ride".
I dont diminsih the importance of a driver or pilot at all. It is not necessary to borrow words that originally had another meaning to make their relationship appear more important. People in aircraft are passengers or pax if you prefer.
A few years ago many of the trains in the UK started refering to their passengers as clients - "we would like to welcome our clients on board" and all that rubbish - thank goodness I see many have gone back to calling them what they are - passengers. I can just imagine being picked up by a London black cab driven by a salt of the earth East Ender asking him to refer to me as a client - he would tell me I was haven a laf, your a "fare mate" and "no two ways about it, Gov!".
Mind you I gather the oldest profession refers to their customers as "clients" these days so what do I know. I suppose they have a duty of care as well these days.
Fact is I dont really mind what you call them. More interesting is the suggestion that every passenger or client (as you prefer) is the same.
My comment with regards "contempt" may have been a little subtle and tongue in cheek - sorry.
The inference was if you treat every passenger with the same "contempt" it matters not whether they are your boss, your mother-in-law, your wife or girl friend you have equal "contempt" for the lot of them when they "demand" you do something with which you are uncomfortable.
So back to the serious point in hand I was simply pointing out that your original post was wrong because in reality their is a huge temptation to "give in" to certain pressures - to ignore that would be to deny the human condition. The pressures on an airline pilot, a private pilot and a commercial pilot flying his "clients" are different and it is as well to recognise the differences. That was the reason I felt compelled to respond to your earlier post.
Even if you think you treat them all the same subtely you dont. As we have heard the way checks are carried out for a "client" are different almost always from the way a private pilot performs his checks. That doesnt mean one is any more or less safe but it does mean their are different reasons why things could go wrong.
I guess you would know that from when your client is the Government and you are ducking small arms fire for flag and country - a different client, different pressures and different rules.