DGAC objecting to cost sharing / flight pooling in France

And here is the official text.

boscomantico wrote:

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.

Thanks for the quote of this article, very annoying indeed.

The way I read it what they target are people who announce flights on the net. Therefore, in theory, anyone who does so outside the defined spectrum they indicate will get prosecuted.

I see the same problem as you however. I somehow doubt that the ramp checkers in France will only check and try to prosecute people whose announcements they have seen beforehand on the net, but simply will try to bust anyone they get across. France once more is starting to get a questionable reputation for PPL’s to fly there.

Can’t agree with the last phrase though. On balance, I still think it is GA heaven in Europe. Anyway, OT…

Aviathor wrote:

And here is the official text.

Thank you. Three points that I think are worth mentioning:

• This decree applies to cost-sharing flights that are organized with the help of an Internet platform or “any other means of publicity”. So if you know your passengers already, it doesn’t apply. I would also think that an Internet platform that just connects passengers and pilots in a region, but doesn’t help organize the flight, would not be covered by this.
• It applies to flights originating or terminating on a French aerodrome. I doubt if the basic regulation gives a country the means to make such exceptions based on these criteria.
• All such flights must be done by day and in VMC, even if plane and pilot are IFR rated and certified. I highly doubt any risk analysis was done for this definition since there are clearly cases where flying IFR is much safer than VFR, and to me you cannot accept any IFR clearance if you cannot accept IMC. This alone would be enough to question the validity of the whole thing if someone cares to challenge the decree. They would have to admit that they pulled these rules out of thin air with no data to support it.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

I somehow doubt that the ramp checkers in France will only check and try to prosecute people whose announcements they have seen beforehand on the net, but simply will try to bust anyone they get across.

It is the simple fact that they will interrogate pilots and passengers about how they are related and how they met, which I find highly objectionable. It’s none of the state’s business and in any state that wants to pretend to be a state of law, you may refuse to answer such questions and it’s on them to find proof elsewhere. But if you do, I am sure they will find other means to harass you and your passengers – like it was in the countries of the former Eastern Block.

Rwy20 wrote:

This decree applies to cost-sharing flights

One thing which is very important: It is NOT a decree. It is a decision by the Director of DGAC, and he is not entitled to issue decrees. It is titled as “consigne opérationelle” – or “operational order” by DGAC. I am not sure what the legal status is, but is certainly is not law.

boscomantico wrote:

On balance, I still think it is GA heaven in Europe. Anyway, OT…

It may be that, however in recent years, it appears to me that reports of rather overzealous ramp checks and other harassments have sharply increased. Separate interrogations of passengers of a VFR flight? Hello? What ever happened to “presumed innocent until proven guilty?”

I think RWY20 sais it better than me:

Rwy20 wrote:

It is the simple fact that they will interrogate pilots and passengers about how they are related and how they met, which I find highly objectionable. It’s none of the state’s business and in any state that wants to pretend to be a state of law, you may refuse to answer such questions and it’s on them to find proof elsewhere. But if you do, I am sure they will find other means to harass you and your passengers – like it was in the countries of the former Eastern Block.

Actually, having flown in some of those former Eastern Block Countries and I am in one currently, nobody ever would think of such interrogations. If I were ramp checked in France with passengers who trust me to fly them and they get interrogated like criminals in separate rooms e.t.c, I would not like to start to imagine what the consequences of that would be to MY reputation and the reputation of GA as a whole.

What does that mean? If I fly with some friends to France I have to previously brief them what to say in case we are detained and questioned by the DGAC? Well, as a passenger, I’d take the train or car instead.

This kind of practices need to be challenged and stopped. Personally, I rather can do without such harassment. So France once more goes on my avoid list. Thankfully there are other countries who don’t treat GA pilots and their passengers not like criminals.

If the authorities have an issue with sites like this, they should challenge them legally rather than putting all of the pilots under general suspicion.

The French transport pilot’s union USPNT has criticized the DGAC for renouncing the requirement of an AOC for flight sharing websites. They cite safety concerns, saying that it was unacceptable a private pilot could, under certain conditions, transport an unknown person, since only the high standards applied to professional pilots and commercial aviation could guarantee the safety of air transport.

Also, they voiced security concerns, stating: “Allowing the public to bypass security controls to get onboard an airplane and to transform it into a flying bomb is not a good idea at all”.