Air Operator's Certificate - Useless Gold Plating?
 

If both pilot and aircraft is certified by their national CAA, do people here think an AOC is an overkill for most non-scheduled services, particularly to small/light-aircraft GA businesses?

An AOC is definately not overkill. Without it commercial air transport would be undercut by unscrupulous operators undermining safety and service, the result would be a very dangerous scenario indeed. It would be very naive to imagine that self regulation would suffice in a dog eat dog open market such as biz jet operations.

Private operations on the other hand do not have the direct competition that would lead to this downward spiral.

The regulations are vital, they just need to differentiate between what are AOC operations and private, non commercial air transport operations.

Like that doesnt happen by some AOC holders? :rolleyes:

What business are you referring to?