at least until we can see the wording of their regulation.
Surely, when a country wants to stick a finger up to EASA, they don’t put it clearly in writing. They just spread some FUD. In GA, it works exactly as well as written regs 
IMO DGAC cannot do anything in that matter without breaking EU law and basic principles so I’d just ignore it. I think especially the guys from wingly are very active and get quite a bit media attention and positive feedback that it hopefully is helping to promote GA.
The only ones i see here breaking the law – are the French authorities.
mh wrote:
I think especially the guys from wingly are very active and get quite a bit media attention and positive feedback that it hopefully is helping to promote GA.
Exactly. I’m still not sure it’s a viable business for the operators once their start-up financing is running out, but Wingly certainly gets a lot of attention and traffic! Posted flights usually fill up quite quicky (especially local sightseeing trips).
This is for Germany. The UK sub-site seems to be lagging behind quite a bit.
The problem is that when you next fly to France, be it with cost-sharing or not, it is not unlikely that on landing, you will be harassed by officials, causing you to lose time. If it goes bad, and your pax, being interviewed alone, says something “sub-ideal”, you might be in more trouble.
From what I have read in the FFA’s official publication on this Pilot magazine, the article you mention Bosco is actually only there to regulate what the aeroclubs in France have all been doing for years in terms of “vol de decouverte” which is basically a “test flight” of no longer than 30 minutes – not further out than 40KM away from the home field landing on that again. It is what a lot of the aeroclubs propose in Summer and clearly is in direct competition with a lot of the professional outlets that propose flights around the Mont Blanc etc. in the Alps for example. For an Aeroclub, this clearly is a nice category if income, take off from let’s say Megeve, have a volunteer pilot fly 2-3 random punters around for 30 minutes – pocket 90 euros a head and make the accounts of the club look a lot better. I know of plenty of clubs who do this – in fact all of them do it. The article you quote is there to regulate that, not the real cost sharing we are all talking about which I do believe is regulate by EASA, this is a French thing only to regulate the disloyal competition to the professional joints that have been set up as an airline (the only way to do it in France) that ferry people around and can do flights longer than 30 minutes. This is how it was explained in the FFA’s magazine – which seemed plausible to me given what I know is practice in the aeroclubs.
Sure, but the point is that arguably, they can’t just do what they want and what they think makes sense nowadays, with the EU OPS regulation in place. No matter what was the past, etc. and how reasonable it may be. That is not the point.
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
From what I have read in the FFA’s official publication on this Pilot magazine
Are you referring to Info-Pilote? Which issue and page?
Peter wrote:
Where is the line drawn here?
If you get ramp checked in France, there is a high probability they will interview you and your passengers separately, and one of the questions they will ask is how you know eachother. Whether you get charged with illegal cost-sharing depends on your respective answers. How do I know…?
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
The article you quote is there to regulate that, not the real cost sharing we are all talking about which I do believe is regulate by EASA
No. They are trying to extend the rules concerning “baptêmes de l’air” – or “discovery flights” – to cost sharing. Discovery flights is a new concept in EASA/JAR which was probably introduced at the request of the French who have had such a regulation for years.
I do not think that EASA has any experience requirements for discovery flights (like the French have in their legacy regulations), but I have not read AMC/GM. Nor do they have any such requirements for cost sharing.
I came over a thread on PuF today where they were discussing cost sharing, an I realised that the German PPL community is not unanimous in applauding Wingly and the like…
