I stand corrected. Of course Eddie Stobart now owns Tesco's transport division, but the analogy is still sound, if out-of-date.

Ryanair and Easyjet seem to require an AOC.

Flynowpaylater

It all sounds very confusing so the local bakery need an operating licence to move their bread to the retail outlet in a small van?
I am sure that what you say is right but would like to see the regs that so state.
So the private owner using his aircraft for business can move stuff around as long as its not being moved to the point of sale???

Pace

The little baker may need it but they can get a restricted operators licence which is simple to get you fill form in supply you have proof of i believe £5k (can be on credit card) to use to fix any issues with vehicle

The road transport industry is tied up in regulation tighter than a nuns chuff pace.

Anything over 7.5 tons needs to be on an operators license. They shafted all the huge arsed horsey types getting on for ten years ago and made them all get medicals for driving over 3.5 tons and over and made the old heaps of 7.5 horse boxes get up to standard.

There are zero dispensations for private work. Even if I borrowed an artic for the day I would still have to have a tacho in and comply with all the regulations as if I was shifting a commercial load.

And traffic commisioners take no prisoners at all. None of this pissing around the CAA do, they just pull the approval until the operator sorts there poo out. Any hint of folk taking the piss and they are like a Jack Russell with a chance of a shag or to murder something.

Also seems strange that there isn't any additional bollocks to do with lab rats etc getting transported in aircraft compared to any other animals.

I had to do a humane killing course and other such bollocks for getting the license to drive them about in a van. They needed way more enviromental conditions than normal criter transport. Which you certainly didn't need for moving 100's of pigeons about or for that matter taking 50 beasts to the slaughter house even though most drivers that do it regularly have a bolt gun onboard and a wire coat hanger.

Medical grade pigs were a nightmare, mind you food chain pigs were a pain in the arse at the best of times. Vet on the onload, vet at the off load and if you got a cold within 10 days of driving them the whole lot was quarantined.

That is bizarre. Until they get to a lab surely there is no difference between lab animals and pets or food.

Nah lab stuff, they are all known genetic stock and brought up in known conditions without exposure to the world at large so that that can't stuff up the experiments.

The animal welfare is very tight and there are ethics commitees who approve virtually everything that happens to them.

The only exposure I have had with "lab animals" for experiments was a dead pig from a butchers to use as a mount for testing stab proof vests and that was bad enough. We had to have a phycologist interview the folk that were stabbing it to make sure they wern't traumatised. I spent a summer moving the criters about in a van occassionally and they were looked after way better than the pet shop owners would do. And the researchers although understanably a bit aloof about them really had a sense of humour crisis about anything that could be deemed cruel or would stress the animal. Whether this was because of regulation, because a stressed animal screwed thier experiments or I would like to think because they were using them in an ethical manner for ligitimate reasons, I don't know.

And as for the food chain stuff its all tagged and has an audit trail right back to its herd of production. In theory if something comes up in 2-3 years time they can trace all the other beasts that its been in contact with in its life. The records are kept for a period after the vet puts thier stamp on it when its slaughtered.

From my limited experence the pets are the ones that have the least protection.

And primates lab animals are in a whole different league to the rats etc. I never had anything to do with them but saw the 16 pages of SOPS to do with thier transport.

Could all have changed though in the 18 years since I was summer jobbing with a HGV license. I can't see it having been relaxed though.