I think one needs to read the law exactly as written. If the CAA wished to exclude say 50hr checks and the engine fund, their lawyers could have drafted it thus. There is no case law
AFAIK on this. Both are unquestionably "direct costs".
I'm not sure I agree. Art 269(3) talks about annual costs and direct costs, in a way that suggests they are considered mutually exclusive. In Art 255:
'Annual costs' in relation to the operation of an aircraft means the best estimate
reasonably practicable at the time of a particular flight for the year commencing on
the first day of January preceding the date of the flight, of the costs of keeping and
maintaining and the indirect costs of operating the aircraft, such costs in either case
excluding direct costs and being those actually and necessarily incurred without a
view to profit;
That suggests to me that the direct costs do not include maintenance and "keeping" the aircraft. But I agree that there may be ambiguity -- personally I wouldn't want to test it.
This will all go out of the window when EASA OPS comes in, of course, at least for EASA aircraft. Then we're up against:
‘commercial operation’ shall mean any operation of an
aircraft, in return for remuneration or other valuable
consideration, which is available to the public or, when not
made available to the public, which is performed under a
contract between an operator and a customer, where the
latter has no control over the operator
What that means is anyone's guess ... oh, sorry, I mean, "for member state courts to interpret".
