PPL and Compensation

[VampyreGTX]

Okay, I'm having a discussion with someone regarding a PPL and compensation. Here's the situation. If I have a PPL and do a lot of business trips, could I get reimbursed by the company if I decide to use my plane to fly my coworkers and me down to the location? What about if it's a sales position and I go to these locations to sell things? Thanks for any help and input.

 

[tarp]

61.113(b) has your basic answer.

Let's say you are a sales manager and have a very large territory - say West of the Mississippi.

You can be paid your salary as Sales Manager.

You can be paid for expenses associated with operating your own plane or renting a plane to conduct your business.

You can NOT be paid as a pilot and you can NOT be ordered to transport employees or cargo from one place to another (i.e. acting as a pilot).

As a simple act of "doing your job", you may carry your employees or customers with you on your flights - no compensation above what has been listed above may be collected. (i.e. you can not be compensated MORE because you are now carrying passengers or cargo).

Basically that's the regulations.

Now you have to face the insurance people - I once investigated using an airplane to take myself and three other employees to a conference. The boss loved the idea. Got a call from our Office Manager and said that the company's insurer considered $4Million of liability insurance for each employee to be a minimum safe value. Have you ever tried to obtain $12 Mill liability on a small GA airplane?? The first question from my Aircraft insurer was "are you going to wreck the thing to collect insurance?" Couldn't get past it - people not in aviation still consider small airplanes to be just dangerous pieces of metal. So instead of a nice 2 hour flight each way in a Cessna Centurian direct to our destination - 4 people spent half a day each changing planes in Atlanta both ways. What a waste.

 

[Timebuilder]

Another question for the FAR page.

In this area, the FAA has ruled that the pilot and passengers must have a common purpose for the flight. The example used referes to whether a pilot and a plane full of skydivers have a "common purpose" when it comes to the sharing of expenses.

http://www.propilot.com/doc/logging2.html

Scroll almost all the way down to the bottom of the page, where the heading "FORUM" appears. Now find the small number "5" on the left margin. Start there.

 

[VampyreGTX]

Tarp,

Thanks for the reply. That's basically what the other person and I finally agreed upon being the right answer. Someone posted the question I did here on a newsgroup and I just wanted to make sure we gave him an accurate answer. I told him to contact the FSDO or AOPA for confirmation as none of us there are FAA people.

Timebuilder, thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

Once again, thanks for the help guys!

 

[jergar999]

I think the keyword here would be incidental. If it were not for the aircraft, would the same people be going to the same place to accomplish a task unrelated to the aircraft? If so, I would agree that you are certainly in the clear.