AOC or not?
 

Just my opinion (having been in your position years ago): Neither option really fits the criteria of a 'cost sharing' flight but unless you bend the aircraft in a high profile manner I doubt anyone is going to notice or care.
The later case you mention with the other contractor could get tricky of you have an accident and that contractor goes after compensation from someone as the someone will probably be yourself.

Legitamicy aside, I've completed such flights as a PPL years ago and I personally wouldnt worry about CASA, as you have already found they cant even give you an answer themselves. Just consider your own liability if there was to be an accident.

Your own staff is fine. The other contractor's staff is a charter as such. Unless he employ's you as their own personal company pilot. Doesn't matter how much he pays you as long as you have a contract and pay tax on your other income.

AWB

You'll probably find insurance companies will be the deciding factor. I have had a few hirers that were doing work like this, but had to stop because there was no compo cover for being "other than a fare paying passenger". Yes, the compo people would prefer that you drive your staff there through croc infested waters...it's nuts.

Would it be easier/practical to operate under the AOC of an established Charter company?

You might talk to these folk for advice, they even own and operate a couple of Metros to support their bush work. Pilots work the tools as well when on site. Unless you're competitors. :eek:

Jetstream Electrical Darwin Electrician

As others have said, the issue will be insurance. You need to think of the "what ifs". Hypothetically and simplistically, you cross hire the aircraft, the engine fails and during the subsequent inevitable landing the aircraft crashes, you are killed and so is one of your passengers. It is unsure whether or not the fatalities have occurred because you messed up the landing or because the engine failed and you had nowhere to land except where there was a tree.

Does the passenger's family sue your dependents who have just lost their husband / father for your poor piloting? Do your dependents sue the owner of the aircraft and his maintenance organisation for poor maintenance? Who conducts the maintenance? The lawyers could take years to sort out the settlements. There are to many many combinations of liability to go through one by one.

If you survived but your one of your passengers didn't then the passenger's dependents could sue you. You could lose everything because your main business is not as an operator of as you have no AOC. Then another passenger says that they were all coerced into flying with you and around you go again. I don't know what type of license you have. I don't know if your workforce are contractors or staff. I don't know who your customer is but if its landing at a mine site or private airstrip, the customer may require insurance, evidence of your qualifications etc. How will you manage fatigue?

I don't know enough details of your individual case but I get paid to provide aviation advice to companies, including insurance companies. My honest (if unpalatable) advice to you would be don't even think about this as being a sensible option.

Sunny is right , of course...thats why GA is in such a schemozzle today.

All the advice, maybe well and good...BUT the complexity of the 'regs' and obscurity of some that can be dug out to kill off the operator boggle the mind..
The OP may well go for an AOC...and by the time he/she has played jump the hoops and survived the paperwork blizzard, paid out mega bucks..and the AOC approval finally turns up after 13 months...then the business opportunity is probably long gone, aircraft hire no longer available ...so its all for nought.
How the hell dopey Governments and its agencies can sqwark.about 'jobs and growth' when the system prevents anyone taking rapid advantage of a business opportunity.
Been there, been 'done' over that years ago. Had an Ops inspection for an AOC variation.adding .CHTR. All OK ..Final statement from the CAsA person departing..'Approval to operate be with you in 48 hrs'. Finally came thru SEVEN MONTHS later after some (expletives deleted) phone calls. But all was lost...business that was to hand initially and cross-hired a/c loong gone!
Over the years I have come across many companies carrying their own employees, or passengers for other than a charter..ie the cost of the week-end on a remote island made no mention of how they got there, being flown in by a PPL. But carry a camera only !!!! Kaboom !!
Its a minefield.!
Just be careful, grassy that you dont blow yourself up...financially and mentally.

Folks,
"Industry Insider" nails it. I have been around quite a while, including for many matters concerning CAR 206, and possible insurance/employment law ramifications are the biggest threat. Without that coverage, with the precisely detailed operation being accepted for coverage, including "workers compo", you are betting your personal and business assets.
CASA is the lesser of your problems.
Tootle pip!!

I would suggest that there is an agreement between the casino and their high rollers about who covers what and under what circumstances. Private corporations carrying their clients and prospective clients as a courtesy or as hospitality is very common.

Toiled for many a year as a full time salaried pilot for a private operator who was engaged in the energy business. CASA were trying to make them subject to an AOC, but the company managed to fend them off, don't know the state of play today. We carried all sorts of people, company employees of course, contractors to the company, who I believe paid for the ride through some accounting system associated with the contract, politicians, town councillors, you name it.

And I'll bet not one of those people died from lack a of AOC.:E

Did the same for many years in what was a private operation.
But we did get an AOC because a PVT flight was last on the list into controlled airspace. We were based at a primary airport
What charter we did do covered the boss' costs.
Even getting a AOC would get over the insurance hurdles buy it would be a mine field juggling CP duties, flying and running the primary business. I would hate to see how you would manage your F&D.

Oh, they had systems in place all right, just that a PROPER audit would have found a LONG list of questionable flying practices.

Can't comment on that, I didn't fly for them. I don't know if they have external audits and if they do who provides them.

So what's the difference between this and people dying in a car crash in a work truck and the driver only having a Private license? I would agree though you would want to be insured in either instance.

Aaaahhhh, but that's different, you have to be a paid up member of the Parachute Federation before you can step outside. You're a member of a club, see. :rolleyes: It was a good system to have when we first started parachuting because then activities all revolved around a club. It was the advent of tandem that what can only be described as commercial operations began. In the club days we jumped at air and agriculture shows, but no money was involved, remember jumping from a 180 flown by one of the Hazeltons at an air display, all donated, but he did demand at the BBQ that night that he be given a jump the next day, put him out on a static line.

megan,
There have multiple legal challenges to Skydiving as it is conducted, up to and including Supreme Court of Appeal , none have overturned the system.
That the classification is "private" has been confirmed multiple times.
I would remind you that money changing hands is not a sole determinant of when an AOC is required in Australia, it is whether you are roped in by CAR 206 or not.
Indeed, some years ago, consumer law was amended to exempt operators of "adventure sports" from a large slab of the normal "duty of care" responsibilities that bind most businesses.
Multiple challenges to the "liability waivers" involved in Skydiving was a major consideration in the legislative change, to put the validity of "blood chits" beyond legal doubt.
With the advent of Part 135, I think the fight is going to start all over again --- as the dreaded "hire and reward" make a re-appearance in Australian air law after around 40(??) years --- I believe due largely to an amazing lack of understanding in CASA of the subject, particularly on the part of a recent CEO/DAS.

Sorry Nev, I honestly don't know anything about truck driving or what type of license you need to drive one. I have no idea if the OP has a Commercial license or a Private license. But trying to make the holes in the Swiss Cheese line up to find a way to make something legal and OK means that those same holes could also potentially align more easily the other way and to continue with the food analogy, the resulting mess will be a dog's breakfast.

In the past that would be classified Aerial Work, requiring an AOC. CASA already have Court precedence to win that one. Some may recall some years ago the guy taking aerial photographs out of (from memory) Far North Queensland with a hand held camera and his own aircraft and the other I recall was a diesel fitter flying out to repair station property equipment. If you catch their jaundiced eye, or have an accident, it could be very expensive for you. Alternatively and possibly equally, they may totally ignore what you are doing.

CASA would view that as Air Charter.

Read CAR 206 and keep in mind that CASA have at least one interpretation of CAR 206 for every day of the week, every set of circumstances and can easily obtain a new interpretation to specifically ensure a conviction in your case, all of which are accepted by the AAT in the interests of "air safety".

+

Folks,
Ain't that the truth.
Tootle pip!!

Eddie,
I never ceased to be amazed at how hard it is to change perception.

"Hire and reward" is a bit like the "give way to the car on the right" road rule, in NSW at least, it,(like hire and reward) was dropped something like 40 years ago, but based on driver behavior, the actual/real/ current rules for "major/minor" roads and roundabouts have never caught on. We have many crashes in NSW from the driver "on the right" enforcing his/her/its "right of way", particularly at roundabouts.

Likewise "hire and reward", CAR 206 was an attempt, many years ago, to define when an AOC was required without the mire of imaginitis in ways of getting around whether a "hire" or a "reward" was involved.

In this case, the Australian approach is quite different to most other countries, said "other countries" getting themselves entangled in all sorts of legal knots.

Sadly, CAR 206 was badly written, and far too easily interpreted/misinterpreted by CASA and others. This is one of the few area where I believe the Australian approach, or at least the intent, was right.

The FAA "rules" are so draconian in interpretation that, if you take an aeroplane to an airshow, and you are a PPL, and the organizers give you a cold drink, or a hamburger, you and they have committed an offence. At Oshkosh, if an aircraft is flying in the display, and the pilot is a PPL, they can't even accept free smoke oil (off spec diesel donated to by oil companies) but have to trudge off to a truck stop with a couple of cans --- and EAA can't even supply the cans.

For those of you who continue to advocate for "hire and reward" to be the determinant, how does that fit into a genuine risk management framework. If the mechanic flies to fix his own tractor, that's private, but if he flies to fix his neighbor's tractor, that needs all the expense and aggravation of an AOC. How does that decrease which risk??

What he does is break the law ---- as various investigations into CASA have pointed out ---- we create "inadvertent criminals".

At least, in the FAA case, many things that require an AOC, (mostly aerial work) here is Australia have no corresponding US requirement. Such as the famous FNQ aerial photography matter.

Tootle pip!!

PS: Many years ago, a well known Sydney QC was pulled up by CAA, on the way to a country case, CAA (an AWI) claimed that his briefcase and a box with his wig were "tools of trade". Wiser heads, further up the CAA food chain, dropped the matter like a red hot brick.