Business travel on a PPL?

[Ds3]

So I'm nearing completion of my PPL and considering all the potential excuses I can make up for using it! I know flying will never be an economical method of travel, and very rarely even prove quicker after pre-flights, onwards travel etc.

However, my company's HQ is based on the edge of a relatively decent grass airfield and I do travel around the UK a fair bit on business, so there is the potential for the odd journey to prove viable with a lift or hire car at the other end.

My question though is this: I don't really intend to get a CPL, and I know you cannot be paid to fly on a PPL. Where does business travel fit in to this? I will be paid 'whilst' flying rather than 'to' fly, although potentially may also carry a colleague who is also being paid whilst in the plane. I guess you could also suggest that I am being paid to carry the colleague, despite this not being the purpose of my wages.

So, can I? Can't I?

[what next]

So, can I?

If the UK is not totally different from the rest of the world in this resepect, then yes, you can. You don't hold a taxi driver's license either, yet you probably drive yourself when doing business trips by car, or not? Even when there are other people on board. It no different from that.

It only changes when the focus of your employment shifts to flying other employess around without you having any business to attend at the destination. (Which is what I am doing.)

[stickandrudderman]

Yes you can.
The taxman cannot stipulate what means of transport you can legitimately use for business travel, it's a matter for the company to decide.
AFAIUI you can also take your colleague as long as you are not obliged by your company to take him by flying him and you are not renumerated for carrrying him as a passenger.
The hire of the a/c and the fuel it uses are all tax deductable as long as it can be demonstrated that the trip was for business only.

[PilotPieces]

There is absolutly no problem with it as long as you never get paid to actually fly the aircraft. I used to go to the occasional meeting with the company aircraft on my PPL. Sure I was getting paid my normal salarly whilst flying to and from but I would have been paid the same if I had driven.

[Sensible Flyer]

So could you claim the cost of the rental and fuel back from the company? Isn't the rule that you have to pay for your "share" of the costs for it not to be considered as work?

[peterh337]

This one has come up here many times.

Take the simplest case, where you rent a plane for a day's business trip. The rental costs you Ł1000. You can stick all of that Ł1000 in your business expenses i.e. recover the lot. No need for a CPL.

If you own the plane personally, then it is a little more complicated but there is an accepted principle there too: let's say during the calendar year your total flying expenses (fuel, landing fees, Annual, etc) came to Ł20000. Let's say during that year you spent 20% of your airborne time (or Hobbs time, if that's what you use) on trips exclusively for the business. You can now stick Ł4000 in your expenses. This is legit with both HMRC and the CAA.

If 100% of the flying was on business then you can reclaim the lot. Of course this is highly unlikely (though not impossible).

Owning the plane by the business (if a Ltd Co) is best avoided because it facilitates an attack by HMRC under the BIK (benefit in kind) rules and they positively love that. I would avoid it even if 100% of your flying was on business.

The above is for both a G-reg and N-reg.

If you do a business trip and carry other company employees, that's OK too, on a PPL. Just make sure nobody is obliged to FLY (i.e. can take a train, etc). The grey area is when you carry customers, etc......

If you carry passengers (in the general case) and cost share, that is a different topic.

On a G-reg it is well defined, although there is a long standing ambiguity on whether you can share the cost of airborne-time-related costs such as 50hr checks, 150hr checks, the engine fund, etc. IMHO, these can all be shared but the Annual itself cannot.

On an N-reg, the FAA has some bizzare rules concerning a "common purpose" which are so strict they are mostly unworkable.

A lot has been written on this stuff. Try a search of the forum - in fact google may be more productive and is a much more intelligent way of searching p pr une than the search function here

[bookworm]

Under current UK law (ANO Art 259,260), the default is that if any money ("valuable consideration") is paid ("given or promised") for a flight ("or the purpose of the flight") then it becomes at least aerial work, requiring a CPL. If money is paid for the carriage of passengers, then it is public transport or commercial air transport (covered by EU-OPS).

There is an exception entitled "recovery of direct costs" (Art 268) which allows the direct costs of the flight to be paid by the pilot's employer, or by a company of which the pilot is a director and for the flight to remain private. A condition is that neither the pilot nor any of the passengers may be legally obliged to be carried. A conservative interpretation of that is that you should always offer any colleagues you intend to carry an alternative means of transport.

'Direct costs' means the costs actually and necessarily incurred in connection with a flight without a view to profit but excluding any remuneration payable to the pilot for services as such;

That is generally interpreted to include the cost of rental, fuel and landing fees etc., but with no contribution towards maintenance or insurance.

On the human-factors side, I would strongly advise you not to put yourself in a position in which you must make a flight to get to a meeting. Leave sufficient time that you can take alternative transport. You may find that constraint quite limiting or inefficient.

[bookworm]

Peter highlights that there are three stakeholders you need to keep happy: the CAA, your company, and HMRC. My answer only dealt with the CAA.

[peterh337]

That is generally interpreted to include the cost of rental, fuel and landing fees etc., but with no contribution towards maintenance or insurance.

I am not aware of that old chestnut ever having been clarified, bookworm. 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".

On the human-factors side, I would strongly advise you not to put yourself in a position in which you must make a flight to get to a meeting. Leave sufficient time that you can take alternative transport. You may find that constraint quite limiting or inefficient.

Of course that's the other side of it.

Much has been written here on that too.

Doing formal customer visits is hard using GA, because

- most airports close too early so flying tends to force a hotel stay (which can actually be quite nice, but not if you then spend Ł200 on taxi fares which are a huge ripoff everywhere)

- most airports do not have instrument approaches, so the despatch rate is poor (cancelling due to destination out, or destination coming back, or both) and hey this opens up the fascinating topic of DIY letdowns

- most British customers, being British, would be jealous of anybody doing well, i.e. of a plane, and don't want to subsidise you expensive hobby, so you have to conceal the fact, and if you cannot then you have to say "I just rented it for the day" and generally play it down (been there, done that, many times). This means you cannot fly unless arrival is assured, which it won't be unless the wx is perfect, which means you often end up driving

That said, there are some spectacular cases where it can work very well, against road transport. I used to fly to Welshpool (4-8hrs' drive) in 1hr.

Obviously visiting suppliers is better than visiting customers. You don't give a **** what the supplier thinks of your plane or your expensive hobby. Or visiting trade shows, and other events where nobody cares if you turn up or not.

One needs a structure for making clear go/no-go decisions. This is almost not at all taught in the PPL, where they instead feed you stupid proverbs like better to be down and wishing you were up than ....

[BackPacker]

If you do a business trip and carry other company employees, that's OK too, on a PPL. Just make sure nobody is obliged to FLY (i.e. can take a train, etc). The grey area is when you carry customers, etc......

To expand on this, I have seen material from the CAA that essentially says that it's OK for a PPL to take colleagues, customers and whatnot on a private flight, IF the flight is only incidental to the trip.

In other words, there has to be a viable alternative. Car, train, commercial air transport, whatnot. So if you fly to and from a business meeting it's OK. You could have driven there as well. But once you start using the aircraft for, for instance, survey work, you're in trouble. Since the survey work could not have been done by car.

The other stipulation is that your employer can't force your colleagues to fly with you. They have to provide an alternative if they don't want to fly with you.

And under these conditions it's perfectly OK to get reimbursed by the company for all the direct costs. But as Peter said, it's a bit of a grey area what to consider direct costs, if you own the plane.


Having said all that, you do need to be careful in considering this. As you know well by now, VFR flying in a light aircraft is very, very dependent on the weather. But your colleagues and the customers you are visiting might not be so understanding, as their experience is probably with commercial airlines only. So if you cancel a trip at the last moment because the weather looks iffy, they're not going to be happy. Do that too often and your performance and standing in the company suffers. (And that's not even considering the opinion of your colleagues when you show up with a clapped-out C172, instead of your shiny new company car.)

[peterh337]

Search caa.co.uk for a leaflet called "summary of public transport".

It is a bit out of date on the CofA stuff but the rest is mostly applicable.

Basically they are trying to keep a lid on illegal charters i.e. carrying paying passengers for profit.

[bookworm]

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".

[bookworm]

To expand on this, I have seen material from the CAA that essentially says that it's OK for a PPL to take colleagues, customers and whatnot on a private flight, IF the flight is only incidental to the trip.

I'm not disputing that as an interpretation, but it's worth being clear about what the law says the condition is:

"Neither the pilot in command nor any other person who is carried is legally obliged, whether under a contract or otherwise, to be carried on the flight."

That's all.

[peterh337]

I had not realised the CAA recently changed the wording on the costs sharing, but I don't think the new wording is at all helpful. It's ambiguous as hell. It's obvious, for example, that somebody with a recent history of doing 150hrs/year can reasonably expect every hour he flies, up to around 150, to be a direct cost.

[peterh337]

I don't disagree.

With passengers, the "rules" need to be clear i.e. if you get stuck somewhere, they accept that, instead of pushing the pilot to buy them all airline tickets so they can get back to work etc.

[Talkdownman]

SUMMARY OF THE MEANING OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT & AERIAL WORK

[mary meagher]

DS3, I am sure you are very proud of your new Private Pilots License.

But intending to use it for business travel? as I said on another thread to a new pilot, would you trust your (family) (colleague) (business success) to a low hours pilot newly qualified? Just having a read through all the silly accident reports in the Flight Safety magazine, how often it is that a low time pilot encounters WEATHER! If he is smart, he didn't go in the first place, got right forecasts.
If he is unlucky, he will encounter the weather and return to base. If he is UNDER PRESSURE OF ANY KIND - impressing a colleague, going to a meeting, keeping the family happy, he is all too likely to PRESS ON.

Which is when it all goes pear shaped.

By all means, enjoy your new flying, but don't kid yourself that it can be truly useful for business until you have 500 hours, an Instrument Rating, two engines, and a relaxed attitude.

For a reality check, how many hours have you been driving a car? compare that with your current airborne hours. I sure as hell wouldn't fly with you!

[Ds3]

Thanks all for the very comprehensive range of replies!

My situation suggests the plane in question will most likely be part of a non-equity share, although this could change to being an equity share or rented plane.

My company wouldn't reimburse the cost of the plane, aside from maybe the equivalent petrol costs for the journey, however I've no issues taking it on the chin for the extra hours in the air, pleasure, and speed of the journey on the odd occasion it works out.

Obviously very much wx dependant, and I'll always be a position where the car is on the drive should the conditions not be right, although I guess getting back on time should always be a consideration!

[Ds3]

Mary, thanks also for the reply although I feel you may be slightly tarring all new pilots with the same brush a little, with all of them not being able to make sensible decisions nor resist pressonitis... And your comments really apply to any flight, not just business travel.

I fully acknowledge that I am masssively inexperience, and wouldn't begrudge anyone that would prefer not to join me in the plane. I also fully ackowledge the potential for wx to have an impact, as it would with any flight. I have a shiney new BMW on the drive and don't pay a penny for fuel so it's no hardship at all for me if I have to drive instead.

I have to gain experience somehow, and IF the rare opportunity presents itself for me to travel in the plane and it's legal then I'll take it, assuming the conditions are 100%, otherwise I might as well have not bothered getting a PPL at all?

[peterh337]

Gosh I better get a 2nd motor quick.... The paperwork would be significant though....

A good way to work this, which I used to do, is fly up the night before.

Many / most business meetings start in the morning and one cannot get there by car (unless getting up at some stupid hour) and one cannot get there by plane (because the airport(s) don't open early enough).

That way, if one cannot fly up the night before, one takes the car One ends up at the same hotel whichever way

I used to find that on journeys long enough to be worth flying, one had to do the hotel anyway.