FNG
I'm kinda cynical myself. I see you quick on the draw to see the worst in pilots and just as quick to say how reasonable your CAA is about things. Flying Lawyer says he knows you so that shot down my hunch you might be a CAA man but I'm still kinda skeptical about your pro CAA stand that must make the CAA guys who read your posts happy bunnies. Now why would you want that. Maybe we're too cynical at times.

TonyR - whilst I agree, I think this debate has highlighted one important exception.

I suspect there are a reasonable number of pilots who use their aircraft for business. After all it is a very efficient means of getting from A to B.

Moreover it seems to me not unreasonable for the client to pay the cost of travel.

It seems to me that the cost might arise in two ways. In an employee employer relationship the employee seeks reimbursement from his employer, who in turn recovers the cost as a disbursement from his client. In a proprietor client relationship the proprietor is effectively recovering the cost directly from his client. Whatever the relationship, the pilot is seeking to recover the cost of getting himself to his client.

The other situation that seems to me likely to arise is that in which the pilot is providing transport for his client. For example he and his client together wish to attend a business meeting and the mode of transport of convenience is a light aircraft.

Setting aside for a moment the law in all these scenarios were the transport provided by car we would be happy to pass on the cost to our client.

As FL says we all want to operate within the law but equally I do not see any of these scenarios constituting "looking for loopholes". I have therefore found this debate very interesting in terms of helping to define where the boundaries might be in the scenarios I have outlined.

bookworm: I think (a) is OK but (b) in your post is not. The reason is that the client paying either you direct or your employer indirectly is valuable consideration for the flight. The position might be different if the client was in the aircraft and paying his share of the direct costs of the flight. Paying you to visit him or similar is quite different.

Maybe if I worked for the CAA I wouldn't have to get up so early, but I don't work for them*, and don't think that everything that they do is reasonable and beyond criticism. The approach to public transport and aerial work indicated in their published Summary does, however, seem to me to be a sensible one, capable of being readily understood.

IO, I agree that the costs, in real terms, of flying for an hour include maintenance, and any group or renter prices each hour to reflect this, but "direct costs" for ANO purposes has the specific meaning to which you have alluded, and this excludes maintenance. I'm not sure that the present definition is a particularly good one, but we are stuck with it for the time being.

(*as a lawyer in private practice working to the cab rank rule, I have, over the years, done cases both for and against the CAA, but I am neither retained nor employed by them)

What do you think the purpose of the "by or on behalf of the employer" phrasing is intended for if not that?

I think that Article 130 9 in


(9) (a) Subject to paragraph (b), 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) valuable consideration specified at paragraph (2)(c); or
(ii) in the case of an aircraft owned in accordance with paragraph (10)(a),
valuable consideration which falls within paragraph (10)(b);
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.
(b) If valuable consideration specified at paragraph (2)(c) is given or promised the provisions of that paragraph shall apply to the flight.


is intended to limit business flying to peoples' own business. To fly in connection with an unrelated business would permit the carriage of unrelated people and freight and the CAA wants to keep a lid on that even if no money changes hands - that's AOC territory and payment often cannot be proven especially if made after the flight.

I don't think there is a need to look for particular logic in this. It's in the same category as the min 5% shareholding in a group owned Private CofA plane. The plane isn't any less safe if a shareholder has only 4% or 0.1%. The CAA make a concession on maintenance, and this is a way to limit how many planes take advantage of it.

I also don't think that Fuji's concern is a problem because with absolutely every business flight there is money or potential money to be made, partly or wholly as a result of the travelling, so if this was a problem the CAA would have to put a blanket ban on all travel connected with a business. Just like car insurers do if you buy a private use only policy.

Article 130 5 is also interesting

(5) (a) For the purposes of paragraph (2)(a), there shall be disregarded any valuable consideration given or promised in respect of a flight or the purpose of a flight by one company to another company which is:
(i) its holding company;
(ii) its subsidiary; or
(iii) another subsidiary of the same holding company.

This appears to make it a private flight if the payment is made between thus related companies. But the pilot still has to be an employee/director of one of them. In practice, in the scenario I described earlier (and which FNG got so wound up about for some reason), the ltd company owning the plane would be a subsidiary of the pilot's main business, and in any case he would be a Director of both of them. Exactly what is wanted here.

I get the feeling that the people I have spoken to years ago about how to do this have actually read through some of this stuff, or paid someone to do it :O

I think that could include where payment is made, for example, by an agent on behalf of the employer. I do not think it is wide enough to cover a situation where a third party agrees to pay the cost to the employer, as that is caught by the concluding words of 130(9)(a): "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.

So, if A (client or customer) pays C (employer) so that B (pilot) makes the flight that is valuable consideration and caught both by 130(1)(a) and 130(9), as there would be an agreement, i.e. a contract, in place. Whether the pilot is re-imbursed any costs of the flight he has paid by C is irrelevent in this scenario as it is the valuable consideration paid by A which takes it out of the private flight category.

Justiciar

As you have put it, I totally agree. The key, IMV, is that the pilot must not be obliged to fly.

However I think it would be pretty unusual if one of my customers actually specified that I FLY to see him :O

One situation which I didn't get into was when a customer once asked whether I could take his son up for a flight. Before FNG gets all worked up about this :O , such a variation isn't that uncommon, and CAA's view would be the last of my concerns; it would be the insurance. In the end it didn't happen because the customer felt he would fall foul of his company's rules on gifts :yuk:

Aaaah! Always a nice warm feeling to hit the target!
Good luck with getting to prosecute pilots for your CAA, FNG. ;)


Some of this discussion goes right over my head. Wouldn't it be a lot easier of the law said No Payment or No Remuneration like itt says in the CAA's own paper.
How the hell are ordinary pilots meant to know what 'valuable consideration' means? Even folks here who know what it means can't agree if a scenario is or isn't valuable consideration. An ordinary pilot has no chance and could easily get into trouble if someone decided to make trouble for him by reporting him to the CAA. I bet the guy who gave his helo for nothing for a local cause was dobbed in it by some jealous wellwisher. :rolleyes:

I'm sure thats absolutely right. Lets face it, most minor transgressions never come to light until something goes seriously wrong, at which point the CAA etc crawl over you, your licence and your aircraft. How may people pilots have made an ILS approach with non-FM immune equipment; flown without a chart or that second pair of glasses that their medical requires? Its a bit like having no MOT on your car - most people only get caught out when stopped for something else!

Bronx: Laws can never be made that simple - I've spent 20 odd years trying and sometimes succeeding in getting a favourable interpretation of some statute or regulation for a client.

The helicopter was very unfortunate and who knows whether he was correctly advised by his lawyer. The main point in my view about this is that there has to be an agreement which suggests something formal and of legal force, with something of value passing the other way. A mere expectation that someone might get publicity or someone's business in the future does not seem to be enough.

I think this has been talked almost to death;)

Nope, Bronx, way off target. I have never prosecuted anyone, and never will, as I am not a criminal lawyer. The legal work I have done for and against the CAA has had nothing whatsoever to do with enforcement actions against pilots.

PS: Justiciar, I rather agree with you: it's been talked to death. Was it Lord Wilberforce who observed "when angels are performing saltatory exercises on the heads of pins, there's always room for one the more or less".

Blimey, you lawyers!
First it's 'cheesy', now it's 'saltatory'.

Don't know about "salutary exercises" but he did comment on "The austerity of tabulated legalism" :ooh:

saltatory means of, pertaining to, or chacterized by leaping or dancing...

Shush! Nobody wake up Lord Diplock or he'll start on about "synallagmatic agreements", and then where shall we be?

This is simple folks

You fly for fun you must pay your share.

You own an a/c and fly for "your" business as I do (live in UK, work in France), that's ok as long as you don't tear the arse out of the expenses.

Start getting into company and or client "paying" expenses, your walking a thin line.

John

'Saltatory' related to Saltarello, a dance characteristic of lands of southern europe.

See the final movement of Mendelssohn's Fourth Symphony (the 'Italian').

:D

The root is the latin "saltatus". There's also the Tarantella, a dance performed by persons maddened by the spider's bite (or driven insane by reading this thread). The controversy as to the saltatory exercises of angels was falsely attributed to scholastic disputation at medieval universities, as

http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/headsofpins.html

reveals.

It would be nice if the CAA could produce a "plain english" translation of many of their documents, like the FAA do. Trouble is, if they did they'd end up contradicting themselves all over the place....

EA