Compensation
An
incredibly misunderstood subject amongst pilots, is when it is legal for a
pilot in
Let’s take
a look at the different kinds of internationally-recognized (and ICAO-standardized)
pilot licences that exist:
Private
Pilot Licence
Commercial
Pilot Licence
Airline
Transport Licence
Note that
although Transport
Private
Pilot
The holder
of a Private Pilot Licence may act as Pilot-In-Command of any aircraft for
which his licence is endorsed, amongst other things. See CAR 401.26 for all the gory (and
fascinating) details. Did you know that
your PPL is also a Student Pilot Permit for other categories of aircraft such
as helicopters, gliders and airships? I
digress.
Back on
topic. CAR 401.28 makes it very clear
that a Private Pilot may not act as PIC “for hire or reward” unless one of the
exemptions (loopholes) in CAR 401.28 is met.
Let’s take
at the loopholes. CAR 401.28(5) says
that if you are a farmer and a Private Pilot, you can be a local agricultural
spray pilot for hire, under some restrictions.
This probably doesn’t apply to you unless you wear rubber boots and overalls
most of the time and don’t swat at flies circling over your head like I
do. I hate mud and flies.
CAR
401.28(4) says that a Private Pilot can be compensated while flying for a
charity, and spells out exactly what compensation is allowed when the pilot
owns the aircraft, and when the pilot rents the aircraft.
CAR
401.28(3) says that a Private Pilot can be compensated for flying an airplane
by his employer while travelling on business, much as he would if he had rented
a car. This sounds cool, but your
employer will probably not want you doing this because of the liability
exposure for them, if you have an accident.
However, as I tell women in bars, anything is possible with the right
insurance underwriter.
Now for the
juicy one, that causes so much confusion.
CAR 401.28(2) says that a Private Pilot can be compensated for a flight
by his passengers, under particular circumstances only. The amount of compensation is specified by
CAR 401.28(2)(d). The
difficult-to-understand part of CAR 401.28(2) is CAR 401.28(2)(c) – the
restriction that passengers are carried only “incidentally”. 99.999% of Private Pilots have no clue what that
word means. Proof by example follows.
Let’s say
you are an eager young Private Pilot that wants to build hours, so you put out
an advertisement that you are willing to take people for rides in an airplane
for so many dollars. This contravenes
CAR 401.28(2) because the passengers are NOT “incidental” to the flight – they
are the purpose of the flight, and you’re operating a commercial air service. You will be contacted by Enforcement, because
a PPL cannot do that.
However,
let’s say that you put an advertisement in the paper that says that on November
1st you are flying to
If you can
actually understand the difference between the two paragraphs, you are head and
shoulders above the rest of the Private Pilots in
Now for a
grey area. CAR 401.28 specifies “hire or
reward” as compensation for a PPL.
However, a
PPL could be considered to be compensated in other ways than just money.
For
example, in
Commercial
Pilot
Let’s say
our eager young pilot above builds his hours and gets his Commercial Pilot
Licence. Finally, after all that hard
work, he thinks he can put out an advertisement offering to take people for
rides for cash. WRONG. Having a Commercial Pilot Licence is only
part of the legal requirement to carry passengers for hire. In addition, he needs to have an Operating
Certificate of some kind, because he is operating a Commercial Air Service.
What is a
Commercial Air Service? Well, Transport
and the Tribunal and I have had notable disagreements about the exact
definition, but I define a Commercial Air Service as the combination of a Pilot
and an Aircraft which is offered to the public, for hire.
Transport
is all about protecting the public that doesn’t know anything about aviation,
and they carefully regulate all Commercial Air Services by requiring them to
have an Operating Certificate (OC). It
is non-trivial to acquire an OC. An
immense amount of paperwork and time and money is required to obtain one, and
if you haven’t done it before, you almost certainly can’t do it by yourself the
first time without the help of a retired Transport Inspector or someone else
that has done it before.
There are
different kinds of Commercial Air Services and Operating Certificates. Our young, eager Commercial Pilot is
qualified via CAR 401.30(1)(c) to get a paying (snort) flying job at a company
which holds an OC. There are many
different kinds of Operating Certificates:
CAR 406 –
Flight Training Unit
CAR 702 –
Aerial Work (banner tow, jumper dump, etc)
CAR 703 –
Charter (single-engine, or non-jet multi-engine up to 19,000 lbs & 9 pax)
CAR 704 –
Charter (multi-engine up to 19,000 lbs, jets up to 50,000 lbs & 19 pax)
CAR 705 –
Airline (over 19,000 lbs & more than 19 pax)
I haven’t
addressed the long, strange story of CAR 604 here – see below.
Anyways, the
number of Commercial Pilots in
You might
get the impression from the above that the only way a CPL can be compensated is
in the employ of an OC. Some people
would probably like you to believe that to be the case, but it isn’t. You simply need to figure out how to get
compensated without offering a Commercial Air Service to the public, since you
don’t have an OC.
One example
of this is if someone owns a privately-registered aircraft, and hires you as a
CPL to fly it for them. No Commercial
Air Service here, because the combination of an aircraft and a pilot is NOT being
offered to the public for hire. The
owner of the aircraft is NOT one of the unwashed masses of the public that
Transport is trying to protect. This is
an important concept for a young CPL to understand.
Now, there
are variations on the above that cause Transport heartburn. Let’s say that the owner of the
privately-registered aircraft – could be a single, could be a pressurized
piston twin – owns a company and hires you to fly his equipment and employees
around. This does not contravene any
regulations but can make Transport very unhappy. They would really like you to get a CAR 604
OC, even if you are legally not required to obtain one.
What is a
CAR 604 OC? Long, painful story
here. CAR 604.02 requires that you
obtain a 604 Operating Certificate if you operate a privately-registered
aircraft to transport passengers, and that aircraft is turbine &
pressurized, over 12,500 lbs. The intent
of this legislation – I know one of guys that worked on it, long retired from
Transport now – was to ensure that corporate jets had adequately-trained
pilots, and that some records were kept of their training, etc. It grew into a horrible, expensive
monstrosity which is NOT required in the
Another
(non-604) variation on the above that makes Transport itchy is when a person
rents (or leases) a non-604 aircraft (instead of owning it) and hires a CPL to
fly it for them privately. Theoretically
there is no Commercial Air Service, but …
Another
non-604 variation is when there are multiple owners/renters/leasers of the non-604
aircraft. You are now in the fractional
ownership business which is very popular in the
Word to the
wise: Transport may ask you to do
something that is actually not required by the regulations. What to do?
For most people it’s easy - do it - because they don’t know the
regulations. But if you do know the
regulations, think twice before arguing with Transport, especially if you are
right. Nothing will piss them off more
than if you are right and they are wrong about their regulations, and pissing
off Transport is really not something you ever want to do because of the
decades-long pain that it will cause you.
Trust me on that.
--
acboyd@gmail.com