Using PPL for Work Related Tasks

[Fujiflyer]

I am interested to know what exactly the UK PPL holder is allowed to “do” under the ANO. As a relatively inexperienced (PPL + IMC) licence holder (250hrs), I would like to be able to fly the occasional business related trip (whereupon some costs might be reimbursed), however I’m concerned that to do so, could contravene rules relating to hire & reward.

Having read some of the PPL/IR articles it seems that pilots are able to regularly do such trips as part of their business.

How does this work?


Fujiflyer

:confused:

I tried to obtain the ANO online, however this was unsuccessful.
:(

[twistedenginestarter]

You've got to ask yourself what practically is going to happen. Do you think the CAA has a network of informers that would pick up someone giving you money for flying on company business?

What they are trying to stop is people passing themselves off as professionals when they are not.

Have a search around PPRuNe and you'll probably fins a Dutch site that has the ANO on it.

[tacpot]

I have thought about doing much the same thing (as an experiment to see how practical it is), and had decided in my own mind that I would try to claim money back as a 'mileage expense' through the normal channels. My employer only asks to see a petrol receipt for a mileage claim to be re-imbursed. On very long trips, a mileage claim might just approach the cost of the avgas...

I can't see that this goes against the spirit of our PPL.

[LowNSlow]

If you are running your aeroplane through a limited company watch out for the Inland Revenue. If the aircraft is owned by the company and is used by you for business trips you can be chaged benefit in kind. They assess this by taking an hourly rate and applying it to all the weekdays in the year regardless of weather etc. I know of one chap who got clipped for the thick end of GBP 25k about 10 years ago. :(

The same little witch who got him tried to get me when I had an aeoplane in my company. I had a 6 year battle before she finally let go. :mad: :mad:

[Polar_stereographic]

I had something similar many moons ago.

The IR inspector was an 'aviation expert', but in conversation turned out to have failed his PPL before giving up. That was why they considered him an expert. I tell you this mark 1 W. Anker knew about as much on aviation matters as I do about Neurosurgery, ie nowt, if not less.

Needless to say his drive was one of pure spite. A real horror.

Some of his off the record comments, had he mutter'd them outside of the meeting, I'd have floored him. Luckily for him, we live at opposite ends of the country.

PS

[Noggin]

There really is no problem using your aeroplane for business purposes. You can use it much like a car and claim the costs of doing so provided they do not exceed the direct costs as defined in Article 130 (9).

You may carry passengers so long as no payment is made for their carriage and it is understood that no person is obliged to travel by air if they do not wish to. Cost sharing as defined in Article 130 is permitted.

Many companies have a company aeroplane where all the flights are private.

The CAA is only concerned with the benevolent pilots who out of the goodness of their hearts and their dedication to horse racing, transport people from one race course to another without any charge being made! or so they claim.

[FlyingForFun]

Do you not need to pay your fair share of the costs of the flight? Woudn't that mean that you can't get reimbursed if it's just you on board? (And that if you take one passenger, you may only be reimbursed for 50% of the cost? etc...)

FFF
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[Don D Cake]

The ANO is on the HMSO web site here (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2000/20001562.htm)

[Fujiflyer]

Thanks for the advice given so far by everyone. I will write to the CAA for an official response, the content of which I'll share when it becomes available.

What concerns me is that as far as I was aware a PPL could not have his flying paid for by someone else (a company or individual). i.e.: the pilot must make a contribution to the costs. This would seem to suggest (if I'm correct) that the pilot should not claim the entire cost of the journey, rather some proportion of it.

Presumably matters become even more complex when a work colleague is taken (or maybe it simply defaults to the "standard" cost sharing rule). :confused:


Fujiflyer

[FlyingForFun]

fuji,

See my earlier reply: I agree with you, but I don't think it's complex. If you're the only person in the aircraft, you can't claim any money back. If you take one passenger, you can claim 50% back. If you take two, you can claim 67%, etc. The rule is that you must pay your fair share.

However, you and I seem to be in the minority here - everyone else seems to think that it's no problem. Definitely best to get an official answer from the CAA!

FFF
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[Fujiflyer]

FFF

Thanks for your reply.

I'll definitely write to the CAA so that I can provoke a written confirmation. I'm sure you are correct, strictly speaking.


Rgds

Fujiflyer

[SpinSpinSugar]

Hmm. Re: pleasure flying -

"(bb) the proportion which such contribution bears to the total direct costs of the flight shall not exceed the proportion which the number of persons carried on the flight (excluding the pilot) bears to the number of persons carried on the flight (including the pilot);"

Which I think, in English, as FFF descibed means if you're the pilot and you've two passengers, they can technically only pay 2/3 of the flight cost. Directly. Whether you also get them to pay your bar tab for the next week is entirely up to you.

In the real world as long as you are not being paid for your flying services on top of the aircraft cost I don't think you're liable to be nobbled. If two friends wish you to fly them from A to B I don't think the men in dark glasses are going to collar you if said two friends cough up for the entire hire cost in used fivers. As long as the reimbursement doesn't exceed the "break even" you can't be considered to be profiting from the venture.

What you're asking though is whether on a business trip (solo?) you could claim back your costs like you could with car hire.

I think really this is a matter for company policy - you get from A to B by whatever means is economically viable, be it car, airline or private flight. It's on company time and they will reimburse your costs but they are not *paying* you to fly, they're merely covering the cost of your relocation, by whatever means.

At the end of the day the DVLA don't consider you to be accepting financial reward for your driving (against the terms of your license) when you drive a hire car from London to Liverpool.

[bookworm]

Art 130 (9)(a) a flight shall be deemed to be a private flight if the only
valuable consideration given or promised in respect of the flight or the purpose of the flight other than:
(i) [a hire charge]; or
(ii)[payment into a group fund of a jointly owned aircraft];
is the payment of the whole or part of the direct costs otherwise payable by the pilot in command by or on behalf of the employer of the pilot in command, or by or on behalf of a body corporate of which the pilot in command is a director, provided that neither the pilot in command nor any other person who is carried is legally obliged, whether under a contract or otherwise, to be carried.


FFF

If the costs are reimbursed by an employer as above, it doesn't matter how many people are carried (providing none are obliged to be carried). The cost sharing exemption is a separate one (para 8), and involves a reimbursement of costs by the passengers.

Note that from the point of view of aviation law, it doesn't matter if it's a business trip or not. However, if the employer pays for non-business flights, the Revenue is clearly going to take a keen interest.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I know from colleagues who work there, that CAA staff who only hold PPLs regularly fly for work trips. I believe CAA's own policy is that anybody doing this has to have an IMC rating, but that's their policy as an employer, not the law.

I've worked for several aviation employers who are quite happy about the use of private aircraft for work trips. The normal practice has been to put in an "Autoroute" printout, and claim as if you'd driven, although my current employer will also allow me to claim landing fees.

G

[notice]

Sod-it up & Co. have already offered plenty of helpful advice so apologies for this further point.
I was being ticketed for a (static) traffic offence, during which WPC Plod said she believed I was working and, therefore, did I have business use on my car insurance?
If you have not received a written acceptance of the risk, from the aircraft insurers, could be a similar problem even if you're 'private' flying, with or without passengers, on business.
Insurers are keen to find reasons for not paying claims.

[LowNSlow]

Noggin, if the aeroplane does not belong to your company then there is no problem putting the rental costs etc through as buisness expenses.

The problem arises when your company owns the aeroplane. If there is only one director then the aeroplane is regarded in the same light as a company car and you can incur horrendous benefit in kind charges. They can technically do this even if the aircraft is rented out although their case becomes much weaker in appeal if this is the case.

My accountant's solution was simple. Either have two directors so then the aeroplane is treated as a pool vehicle and insurs no benefit in kind or, have two aeroplanes so that neither is wholly allocated to the director as a personal vehicle.

I wish I could have afforded the 2nd option but common sense eventually prevailed :D

[BEagle]

Let's say that you're a 50% shareholder in a flying club which is a limited company owning and operating several light aeroplanes used for the flying instruction and recreational flying of its members. Technically these aircraft are the property of the shareholders and hence you 'own' 50% of them yourself. The Revenue will certainly take an interest if you take advantage of this situation by, for example, flying 'your' aircraft at advantageous or unreasonable hire rates exclusive to yourself. But if you pay the same rates as the members of your club, you will not be receiving any benefit in kind.

If I use one of my light aeroplanes to fly somewhere and back in a day and hence am able to do more work at the place I fly to than I would had I driven there, it would be my employer, not me, who would be benefiting. I can claim the equivalent road distance (most direct air navigation route including any allowance for prohibited airspace) at an approved mileage rate so long as I have prior approval. I know of several people who have done this - there are stipulations and it does require honesty. For example, I cannot conduct any training on such a flight - so when I flew from one aerodrome to another for a meeting a few years ago, I had approval to claim the mileage. (50 min by Cherokee or 2 1/2 hours by road!). However, there was a chap at my club who needed to fly the peculiar PPL renewal that was then in force for some pilots which required a landaway navex and return to an aerodrome more than 50 nm away - and this fitted the bill perfectly. So he paid the going club rate, he flew it there and back under examination conditions - and I didn't submit a claim. No doubt had I done so no-one would ever have been the wiser - but that would have been fraudulent.

Noggin is right about those charitable folk who enjoy horse racing so much that they are happy to fly jockeys around for free......!!

Never do anything which could be construed as being 'illegal public transport' - just recover 'reasonable' costs for your travelling needs in an honest manner.

[FlyingForFun]

Wow, you learn something new every day...

Now, how can I convince my company that I need to go to some interesting place for a meeting, and that they should re-imburse my flying costs? :D :D :D

(Wakes up from very pleasant dream to find himself sat at same desk, with no chance of meetings in interesting places, and no chance of flying costs bein re-imbursed even if said meeting did happen!)

FFF
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[Fuji Abound]

One point - the emphasis has been on recovering the equivalent cost of the journey by car in a number of the posts. What rate you use and on what basis the claim is calculated is clearly a matter between you and your employer. However in so far as the Inland Revenue are concerned it is not a matter for them to determine whether the cost of the journey is extravagantly expensive relative to any other mode of transport, in much the same way that whether you fly to New York by Concord or Jumbo both costs are equally recoverable. It is however a matter for the Inland Revenue to determine whether or not there is a profit element intrinisic in the claim and if there is in much the same way that if the official mileage rates are exceeded the excess is taxable. Of course as earlier contributors have said the intention is only to recover the cost not realise a profit, a prerequisite to stay with the ANO.

[dah dah]

Next month I will be hiring a PA28 to fly from the Midlands to Shoreham for a business meeting. My company, which I own, will reimburse the costs.

I didn't feel the need to talk to the CAA, but I know that at some time in the future the tax man is likely to visit and look at expenese etc.

I contacted my local tax office and was told (after a 24 hour wait) that there was no problem and that the hire charges could be recalaimed as a valid business expense; and it would NOT in any way be considered a benefit in kind.