Where to find “common purpose” clause for private pilot carrying pax

6 Answers

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   John D Collins on Dec 25, 2014

   Look here. The search yields 34 opinion results at the FAA General Counsel website.

   http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/agc/pol_adjudication/agc200/interpretations/?year=all&q=common+purpose&bSubmit=Search

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   Drew on Dec 25, 2014

   I’m surprised they haven’t amended the FARs to explicitly include this, considering how easy it is to violate it. Thanks, John.

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   Mark Kolber on Dec 26, 2014

   Yeah, they probably should have. But here’s two problems:

   First, if you look at the FAA Chief Counsel interpretations you’ll find that a lot of different regulations have been covered. Start amending to “clarify” all of them and you wind up with a substantially longer FAR. Your choice for what needs to be amended is going to be different than someone else’s. Seems to me most of the “clarification” amendments I’ve seen have done little more than raise new questions. My favorite of this group is the Chief Counsel interpretation clarifying the amendment clarifying the IFR currency rule to say that what everyone thought it said before it was clarified is what it still says. (I wish that was a joke.)

   Second, we’re talking about the area where private operations meet commercial ones. That area is so full of nuances based on specific facts and circumstances it becomes almost impossible to define a number of bright line tests that don;t themselves need interpretation. Indeed what constitutes a “joint venture for a common purpose” has itself changed through the years.

   I guess there’s also a third – at some point understanding what a reg means is an educational issue. The “common purpose” doctrine as part of what “shared” means in the private pilot limitations rule appears as early as 1977. One would think almost 40 years would be enough for it to trickle down into standard pilot education.

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   Gary S. on Jan 04, 2015

   I’m not a finagler by nature, but it seems to me this “common purpose” rule would be very difficult to enforce.

   For instance…if neighbor’s want me to fly them over the Grand Canyon, and I have never seen the canyon and I’d like to see it too, would it be illegal for them to pay their pro-rata share of the expenses?

   What is the smell test FAA uses to nail our hides to the wall?

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5. 
   

   
   

   Drew on Jan 05, 2015

   Gary,

   I believe you must have a predetermined reason for the flight before any offer is given to you to fly. In your example, you would already have planned your flight to sightsee the Grand Canyon on a certain date; a couple days before the trip, your neighbors brings up the idea, and coincidentally, you were planning a trip to the GC all along. In that case, it would be a common purpose: you had your pre-determined reason to go the GC that is independent of your neighbor, albeit they are both the same reason. In the case that you weren’t planning a trip but someone brings up the idea, you would essentially be providing transportation for them primarily yet receiving convenient benefits of also sight-seeing the GC, which would be illegal.

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   Mark Kolber on Jan 06, 2015

   What is the smell test FAA uses to nail our hides to the wall?

   Good description – smell test. Cuz that’s what it is. “If it quacks like a duck…”

   What the FAA is looking for is somehting that looks like a commercial operation. This is one of the truly fuzzy grey areas in the regs because (1) the FAA is interested in protecting the public which knows squat about flight safety and airplanes, (2) the FAA in interested in protecting the pilots and organizations who spent the time, effort and money to obtain advanced pilot and operating certificates and be held to higher safety standards and a higher level of active supervision, and (3) clever people are very creative in figuring (best Jon Lovitt slimy businessman voice) “hmmm, if I do it this way… Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

   So the FAA has its tools such as the sometimes silly things it includes as compensation.

   Difficult to enforce? It’s hard to tell because so many enforcement actions are resolved before reaching the NTSB appellate level but offhand, I’m not aware of any enforcement action in this field where the FAA has lost. OTOH, I would expect that, unless there was some kind of incident to bring a single flight to the FAA’s attention, a single flight in which family or freinds paid part of the cost would probably interest the FAA about as much as driving 7 MPH over the speed limit interests state troopers – technically unlawful but do they really care?

   But this is about what the rules are, not what you can get away with, right?

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