Need help. Fly for my wife's company?

[N8157B]

My wife's company has a team of engineers who will need to travel numerous times over the next year approxomately 250nm away. They want me to fly them and have asked me to look into what it would take. I would be volunteering my services as pilot but need an airplane. Is there any way to do this with them renting an airplane? Is the cost of rental considered "compensation"? Is it considered "holding out"? Any help would be great.

 

[dmspilot00]

I would be volunteering my services as pilot

Why would you do such a thing?

 

[N8157B]

I suppose that is a little fishy that I would "volunteer". It is a small group of engineers, part of a huge company. I am friends with them and it is a great opportunity that may work out to be something. I am sure that if it is more than a few times, compensation will be discussed.

 

[Jeff Helgeson]

Part 91 vs. Part 135

They need to hire you or contract you with the company on paper. The flying needs to under Part 91 and be incedental to your business or just be the company, Part 91 pilot. You need to research the regs. and hope none of the engineers are named Buddy Holly or Ricky Nelson.

Convince them they should rent a twin, since you probably want to build multin-time.

Good Luck

PS: Hey, who used my computer and gave out advise under my name, without my knowledge???

 

[bobbysamd]

Part 91

You would be a "corporate" pilot under what you propose. You should be compensated for your time, even nominally. There could be wage and hour hassles if you aren't paid.

In addition, you have airplane liability and/or insurance considerations if it involves a company. Maybe even Workers' Comp. I'd check out all these things.

In any event, good luck with your plans.

 

[George Zip]

Part 134 and a half

Be vewwwwy vewwwy careful, Bugs.

There are more pitfalls and potholes in the scenario you are describing than a Detroit highway.

First of all, if you rent the airplane and then re-bill it to them, YES that's "holding out" in the FAA's eyes. Anything they pay you at all would be considered "compensation"

The only legal ways to do it are to be on their payroll already in some unrelated capacity, and have this flying be "incidental" to your other duties, have them hire you expressly as a pilot (you have a commercial license, but with only 600 hours the company's own insurance policy would likely balk), or you could obtain a part 135 air carrier certificate and publicly "hold out" for on-demand charter (admittedly an unrealistic option for a short run deal).

There are some small chasms in the rules such as time-swapping on a company owned plane with another company, etc., but they wouldn't apply to a situation like this.

The FAA has established in court that even if you do not collect money for said flying, if it counts hours toward a higher rating or qualification you are considered to be receiving "benefit". People have paid steep fines and lost licenses over it Further, the IRS would want to be paid their taxes that they think are applicable even if you did donate your time and the company accepted. These taxes would include sales taxes (applicable to the company), income taxes (applicable to you), excise taxes on commercial air transportation......yata yata yata......

If the company's insurance underwriter caught wind of a non common-carrier pilot carrying around comany personell they'd have a fit, if an employee got hurt stepping off the airplane and filed workman's comp lots of questions suddenly come up......

You could just do it anyway and hope you fall in the 75% category that nothing would ever happen and noone would ever know. Would you like to bet on 25% odds that any of the above will occur and you will have to answer about later in your flying career? I wouldn't.

I used to own and operate a Part 135 company. We worked our behinds off and spent a lot of money to comply with the (admittedly dense) FAR's, tax codes, federal, state, and local laws. We (and all the other legitimate air carriers) never wasted an opportunity to alert the authorities to a non-legal, non-compliant operation if we caught wind of it happening. I'm not saying that to be nasty, I'm just pointing out that those operators have spent the dough to be in business and they regard people who would do this as a threat to that. Just like a hospital might if they heard of med students doing free surgeries in the alley behind the building.

I know it's terribly tempting to log time any way you can, especially if you don't have to pay for it. But believe me, it's a big risk and you'd thank yourself later for avoiding the trouble. I was there once too, I took the risks, only later to realize just how far in jeopardy I would have been if the wrong folks had found out. Thank God they never did.

BTW, if it's a large company, I guarantee you somewhere in their general insurance policy you'll find some language that addresses this kind of thing.

I had the very same situation come up when I was in college, (in fact it was the school itself that needed the transportation) and we went so far as to having dates, times, and passengers set up before a little research turned up these (and other) road blocks and kaboshed the whole thing. It did eventually lead me to start a 135 operation, and that grew to a fleet of piston twins, turboprops, and the area's first shared jet program, so you could also disregard any of the discouragement and just do the whole enchilada. Just don't think it's ever as simple as just volunteering a little pilot time to some local company.

Just my $.02 - good luck.

 

[na265]

Just a thought. If it is a "Big company", why not do some research through NBAA and come up with some numbers to present to them about the benefits of a Company owned aircraft. That way you are a 91 operator and may be able to set yourself into a good job. Just shootin' from the hip here, but, you never know it might work. Good luck!

 

[N8157B]

Thanks!!

I really appreciate the posts in reply to my question. I got about what I expected and more.

I pretty much figured that I would not be able to do it legally, but thought I would ask. I certainly am not willing to risk anything just for a few hours. Things like this always seem great until you stop to think about it.

In talking with my wife last night she said they used to have a company airplane a number of years ago but it has been a while. I do like the idea of trying to nudge them toward opening a flight depatment again. Just in the traveling my wife and these other guys do makes me think it would be worth their time to look into it.

My "voluteering" my pilot services was an idea to get "in"with the company should they decide to get another airplane. You never know what can happen. Given my low time though, it might be a stretch. I will keep all posted on what happens. Thanks again.