REFLECTOR: Splitting Flying Costs

[Willie.Sanchez at mail.cuny.edu]

All,

I will preface this by saying, I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV.

The splitting of cost with friends while flying is a very tricky question 
and not as straight forward as it seems.  The basic rules are spelled out 
in
FAR 61.118(b).

As an example, suppose you were taking a flight from HPN to MVY for a 
round of golf, your friend says 'Hey, my mother lives on the Vineyard, can 
I fly up with you and split the expenses
for flying?'  You say sure...fly round trip and split the cost 50/50. 
Sounds like a legit noncommercial flight and the split is legal right? 
Well, if you
answered right....you'd be wrong.  At issue is what the FAA has deemed 
'commonality of purpose'.
Since your buddy was not going to play golf with you, his trip with you in 
this case would be ruled commercial because you both took the trip for
different reasons and therefore you flew him there for hire.

In the situation being raised by Doug not taking any money would probably 
be the best thing, if he did, the part of the rule that would burn him 
would be the third part of that FAR:

The third important limitation is that the pilot must be going on the 
flight for his
or her own purpose. The sole purpose of the flight may not be to provide
transportation to the passengers. This has been my interpretation for many
years. In recent years, the FAA has been taking a more restrictive view. 
The FAA
says not only must the pilot be going on the flight for his or her own 
purpose, but
the purpose must be "common" with the passengers. 


It is quite possible that in Doug's situation even if he received no 
compensation, his friend did and the flight might be considered charter 
nonetheless.  (see third and fourth citation below).

So in general, probably the safest bet is don't take any money from your 
passengers unless you meet the commonality of purpose criteria, make sure 
they are not making money on your flight and 
definitely don't take a check ;-)

Here are a few  interesting articles on this subject:

http://home.pcisys.net/~aghorash/SharingExpenses.pdf 
http://www.aviationlawcorp.com/content/traps.html 
http://www.ntsb.gov/alj/alj/O_n_O/docs/aviation/4583.PDF 
http://www.ntsb.gov/alj/alj/O_n_O/docs/aviation/4791.PDF 

Hope this helps or further confuses.


Willie Sanchez, Co-pilot N104MW
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tvbf.org/mailman/private/reflector/attachments/20090623/84355020/attachment.htm>