Wingly flight sharing site (merged)

EASA Complex

BUT see this

So the King Air is likely OK.

Peter wrote:

So the King Air is likely OK.

I’m aware about the derogation that allows light twin turboprops to be operated according to part-NCO, but that doesn’t change the definition of “complex” and the derogation for introduction flights doesn’t mention the ops rules, it only mentions “other-than-complex” aircraft. So no King Air. Sorry.

Damn, that’s my retirement plan gone down the drain!

Especially in these virus times, when the only non jet traffic flying “overtly” is a load of King Airs and PC12s

I wonder if any kind of arm’s length provision would apply to direct costs – that is, what if the pilot is a shareholder in the company that owns the aircraft/the airfield/the fuel supply company?

I put exactly this question to the UK CAA, c. 2002, because back then the plane was company owned so cost sharing would potentially breach the then CAA rules.

I set out the full scenario and their reply was that this was permitted.

Fairly obviously they had to allow this otherwise an employee of a school could not self fly hire from the school…

But this was in the days when you could get a meaningful reply from the CAA.

My guess, IANAL etc etc, is that if you abused it grossly, a court would set aside the arrangement.

Some previous threads on this aspect. I vaguely recall a story of a chap in the UK was doing “illegal charter” using a similar scheme, plane owned by his wife, she renting it to him, and the CAA tried to bust him, but got legal advice that they would lose, so they “settled on the court steps” (a metaphor for doing a deal, usually in exchange for the target agreeing to stop doing it). Maybe 20 years ago…

There has been a recent court case here with a cost-shared private flight, with the pilot’s share being symbolic only, equivalent of 1 EUR. The charged pilot won the case, apparently because it is not explicitly stated that “shared” means “equally divided”. Obviously that is not the thinking behind the rules, otherwise the discussion about which parts of the expenses can be shared becomes meaningless. This absurdity has now (logically?) lead to another, namely inquires to whether “nothing” – i.e. 0,00 EUR – constitutes a “share” of the costs.

A €0.01 contribution from the pilot is legal cost sharing, under EASA rules.

This is one of the changes from the old rules which I think were generally, around Europe, equal parts sharing. The other big change is that advertising of the shared flight is permitted, without any limits.

That was true in my country too, before part-NCO – equal cost sharing; and generally stricter rules in other areas also, about advertising, and also flying with “strangers” – we had to know passengers quite well for any cost sharing to be within the law.
But if the “sharing” does not have to be equal, then it is really (or can be) sharing among passengers. And the defined “cost” of the flight is really just the maximum amount that the pilot can get back – minus EUR 0,01.
From one unreasonable extreme to the opposite, in my opinion. Especially the part about public advertising. It is very close to legalising commercial flights without following commercial rules. I know from personal experience that some pilots do not adequately inform passengers about the differences in equipment, pilot education and training, procedures and insurance when advertising and flying with complete strangers. So people are in fact not informed by the risks they are taking and the protection they and their family are lacking when they fly along. EASA says there is no indication that this state of affairs implies any significant risk – but then EASA should logically relieve the small commercial flying companies of the requirements of multi engine, approved AOC and multipilot crews, to name a few. I have no share in any commercial flying business but I do feel sorry for one local company that is fighting very hard against pilots that are, in my opinion, not professional enough about their unsuspecting pax.
To my knowledge the French CAA has fought the present liberal EASA rules on cost sharing very hard, and I do not know if that has settled. I think the French opposition is part of the reason EASA has published a “charter” that cost-sharing platforms should use for guidance. It is quote useful for all pilots carrying passengers as I remember it, but my impression is that it is not read by the pilots who need it most, and I find it is not well known at all in general.

I agree about the EASA cost sharing concession generality. I am obviously against most of the excessive GA regulation but even I was amazed at how far this concession went. It chucked a grenade into all the national CAAs.

However, it is still not possible to make money out of cost sharing. A renter can recover 99.99% of all his costs, so he can fly totally for free. An owner can recover less because – no matter how you argue which hourly costs are applicable – he can’t recover the Annual and some other stuff e.g. most maintenance.

So nobody is going to run charter ops. To make a business worth running you need to mark up your costs by 1.5 to 2 times. In manufacturing one aims for 2.5 as a minimum.

AFAIK, illegal charters are done in jets and twin TPs and they are done by a discreet arrangement. Often, a charter AOC holder based at the same airport can see what happened (they were asked to quote on the job and didn’t get it, and even without FR24 they can add 2 and 2) and kicks up a massive stink with the CAA.

I suspect there will be a few cases where somebody contacted XYZ Jet Charter GMBH for a quote from Frankfurt to Sion and when they got the quote of €10k they got onto Wingly and found somebody who did it for €500, but most of those jobs would not have paid the 10k anyway because nobody who wants comfort and all the other “jet stuff” will sit in a rattling shaking SEP for 3 hours.

Unless you did some dodge like “wife owning the PA28 and renting it to you for €500/hr” the best you can do is get effectively free flying. That will appeal to some, but I would predict the % will be very small. Flying piston GA is not something most “normal” people will do just for the fun of it. And it can’t be all fun because you don’t really know who will turn up. And any incident risks blowing the €500/hr operation.

I’ve had a few “high value” opportunities over the years where e.g. somebody was stuck in France when ATC or somebody there were on strike, and I could have collected them from Le Touquet (where they could get to in a Hertz rental car) but even 2 average British holidaymakers would not fit in a TB20 with their airliner baggage. I would have got 1000 quid for the trip but would have needed a Cessna 2xx or bigger

And AFAIK Wingly would chuck the €500/hr rate out as being excessive.

Does anyone know how big Wingly is financially now?