Private Carriage

scott_l

scott_l

Well-Known Member
So, the scenario: I am hired as a pilot for a man who owns a Baron to fly him and his family regularly to places they choose(not coincident to a business).

Simple enough scenario right? My question is am I legal to do this? According to Part 1 I am operating as a commercial operator which puts me under the scope of 119. Part 119.1e covers the below 6000 lbs payload and below 20 pax operations with private carriage and lists the things that DO NOT require a certificate. For the purpose of this scenario I am not giving instruction so I cannot be listed under that exception. Since this situation does not meet those exceptions my thinking is I must have a 121, 125 or 135 certificate. My school teaches plane+pilot+economic gain(note not profit but any type of gain ex. flight hours) =requiring a certificate but I cannot find a reference that alludes to that. I've been all over AC 120-12a and all that has done is define common vs private carriage and in another post about this Midlife Flyer brought to light a FSIMS document that said private carriage required a certificate.

Can anyone clear up the muddy water for me?
 
scott_l said:
So, the scenario: I am hired as a pilot for a man who owns a Baron to fly him and his family regularly to places they choose(not coincident to a business).

Simple enough scenario right? My question is am I legal to do this? According to Part 1 I am operating as a commercial operator which puts me under the scope of 119. Part 119.1e covers the below 6000 lbs payload and below 20 pax operations with private carriage and lists the things that DO NOT require a certificate. For the purpose of this scenario I am not giving instruction so I cannot be listed under that exception. Since this situation does not meet those exceptions my thinking is I must have a 121, 125 or 135 certificate. My school teaches plane+pilot+economic gain(note not profit but any type of gain ex. flight hours) =requiring a certificate but I cannot find a reference that alludes to that. I've been all over AC 120-12a and all that has done is define common vs private carriage and in another post about this Midlife Flyer brought to light a FSIMS document that said private carriage required a certificate.

Can anyone clear up the muddy water for me?
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I don't believe you are acting as a commercial operation. To be under a commercial operation you would need to own the airplane and have held yourself out to him as willing to fly him on your aircraft for compensation. He is simply paying you to fly his aircraft. It sounds like a part 91 operation and you are fine.
 
Matt13C said:
I don't believe you are acting as a commercial operation. To be under a commercial operation you would need to own the airplane and have held yourself out to him as willing to fly him on your aircraft for compensation. He is simply paying you to fly his aircraft. It sounds like a part 91 operation and you are fine.
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Part 119.1a says:
(a) This part applies to each person operating or intending to operate civil aircraft—
(1) As an air carrier or commercial operator, or both, in air commerce; or
(2) When common carriage is not involved, in operations of U.S.-registered civil airplanes with a seat configuration of 20 or more passengers, or a maximum payload capacity of 6,000 pounds or more.

Part 1 defines commercial operator as:
Commercial operator means a person who, for compensation or hire, engages in the carriage by aircraft in air commerce of persons or property, other than as an air carrier or foreign air carrier or under the authority of Part 375 of this title. Where it is doubtful that an operation is for “compensation or hire”, the test applied is whether the carriage by air is merely incidental to the person's other business or is, in itself, a major enterprise for profit.

The keys for me in that definition is a person (not person plus plane). I'm just hung up on this part here. How is it part 91?
 
Note that the reg says Person, not Pilot. I may be wrong here, but my understanding is, the "engages in carriage by aircraft" means the person who provides the aircraft is the one engaging in the commercial operation.

In your case, you are not being hired as a commercial operator, you are being hired simply as a pilot. Now if the owner of the aircraft wants to use that aircraft to make money and not simply transport his family around for whatever reason, then he would need an operating certificate as he would be engaging in a commercial operation, but you the pilot are not.
 
Matt13C said:
Note that the reg says Person, not Pilot. I may be wrong here, but my understanding is, the "engages in carriage by aircraft" means the person who provides the aircraft is the one engaging in the commercial operation.

In your case, you are not being hired as a commercial operator, you are being hired simply as a pilot. Now if the owner of the aircraft wants to use that aircraft to make money and not simply transport his family around for whatever reason, then he would need an operating certificate as he would be engaging in a commercial operation, but you the pilot are not.
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Don't I fit the description of being a person engaging in the transportation by plane if I am the one flying it?
 
Look up "operational control." The owner of the airplane, in your example, has operational control, so he is the "person who ... engages in carriage by aircraft."
 
scott_l said:
Don't I fit the description of being a person engaging in the transportation by plane if I am the one flying it?
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Not anymore than a pilot at an airline. The airline holds the commercial cert, the pilots do not, they simply are hired to fly the planes. Same deal, but since the owner is not using the plane for compensation or hire, simply as a mode of transportation for his family, with you flying, it is not a commercial operation.
 
z987k said:
That's pt 91 all day.
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Matt13C said:
Not anymore than a pilot at an airline. The airline holds the commercial cert, the pilots do not, they simply are hired to fly the planes. Same deal, but since the owner is not using the plane for compensation or hire, simply as a mode of transportation for his family, with you flying, it is not a commercial operation.
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msmspilot said:
Look up "operational control." The owner of the airplane, in your example, has operational control, so he is the "person who ... engages in carriage by aircraft."
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Any references?
 
scott_l said:
I'm positive it would be part 91 but don't you need a operating certificate?
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No, someone's been feeding you lots of BS. There's no pt 91 operating certificate unless you're talking about 91k... and you're scenario is not.
 
Matt13C said:
Not anymore than a pilot at an airline. The airline holds the commercial cert, the pilots do not, they simply are hired to fly the planes. Same deal, but since the owner is not using the plane for compensation or hire, simply as a mode of transportation for his family, with you flying, it is not a commercial operation.
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Even if he was using the airplane as a means to transport himself for business purposes, it's still 91. The point is you're transporting the owner... and to some extent probably his friends or whatever. As long as he's not charging anyone money or holding out it's 91.

I think it's labcorp or some similar lab company that operates a fleet of pa31's on the east coast, all 91. They're carrying boxes of laboratory crap just like me. The difference is I'm carrying someone else's crap, and the crap they are carrying, they own.
 
z987k said:
No, someone's been feeding you lots of BS. There's no pt 91 operating certificate unless you're talking about 91k... and you're scenario is not.
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Yea I was just reading through 119 and couldn't find the wording I was looking for that convinced me...but everyone seems to do it that way.
 
scott_l said:
Any references?
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FAR 1.1: Operational control, with respect to a flight, means the exercise of authority over initiating, conducting or terminating a flight.

Since the owner (not you) has the authority to initiate, conduct, or terminate a flight, the owner has operational control. As others have stated, it's part 91 and there's not part 91 air carrier certificate anyway. The biggest problem you're going to have in this line of questions is that the FAA doesn't tell us what we can do. They tell us what we can't do (mostly). So we can't "prove" that you don't need any kind of certificate for your operation.
 
scott_l said:
So, the scenario: I am hired as a pilot for a man who owns a Baron to fly him and his family regularly to places they choose(not coincident to a business).

Simple enough scenario right? My question is am I legal to do this?..............

Can anyone clear up the muddy water for me?
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It's his airplane and it flys when and where he wants/needs to go. That's pt 91 flying. If he had his PPL he would fly himself, but since he doesn't he hires you for your pilot services.

He has operational control and is therefor the "operator". You have authority as PIC to conduct the flight safely.


Legally your scenario is no different than Zapbranigan. Just replace "man who owns a Baron" with Wal-Mart and a fleet of Lear Jets, it's all straight forward pt 91 flying.
 
On second thought,

It sounds really sketchy to me, you should probably give me his contact info so I can check it out. ;)
 
z987k said:
Even if he was using the airplane as a means to transport himself for business purposes, it's still 91. The point is you're transporting the owner... and to some extent probably his friends or whatever. As long as he's not charging anyone money or holding out it's 91.

I think it's labcorp or some similar lab company that operates a fleet of pa31's on the east coast, all 91. They're carrying boxes of laboratory crap just like me. The difference is I'm carrying someone else's crap, and the crap they are carrying, they own.
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Exactly. When I said the owner is not using the plane for compensation or hire I meant either charging people for a ride or charging people to fly packages. His plane, he can fly who when and where he wants. He (the owner) just cant charge others for his service. Well, I guess technically he can as long as he doesnt hold himself out and does it for one or a few people on a long term basis, but then that is getting into the private carriage gray area where it would be best to discuss it with a lawyer, not a jet forum.
 
USMCmech said:
On second thought,

It sounds really sketchy to me, you should probably give me his contact info so I can check it out. ;)
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I wish it was a real life situation but sadly I just have a commercial student to talk about commercial privileges with and I wanted to understand it as best I could.
 
msmspilot said:
The biggest problem you're going to have in this line of questions is that the FAA doesn't tell us what we can do. They tell us what we can't do (mostly). So we can't "prove" that you don't need any kind of certificate for your operation.
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That is definetely the problem here...if I take the exclusions that leaves me with the rest...but the rest don't have a place to go except part 91.
 
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