Commercial pilot privileges – operating certificates
Asked by: Leon Propsky 969 views Commercial Pilot, FAA Regulations
A common scenario purportedly encountered on commercial checkrides goes as follows:
Q: "Your friend asks you to fly them from A to B. They will pay you for the flight. You rent the plane. Can this flight be conducted under Part 91?"
A: "No, because you are holding out and therefore the flight falls under common carriage. An operating certificate is required."
Q: "What if your friend owns the plane, and wants to hire you to fly from A to B. Can you fly without an operating certificate?"
The expected answer here, I'm told, is: "Yes."
This doesn't make sense to me for the following reasons:
- If you are holding out in the first scenario, I don't see how that changes at all in the second. Your willingness to serve the general public isn't dependent on who owns the plane.
- In any case, does this not effectively render every commercial operation some form of holding out? The logic seems to be "if you accept your friend's request, you are indicating that you are willing to serve the general public, which your friend is a part of". With this kind of logic, it doesn't seem possible to me to *not* hold out. After all, everyone you could possibly fly for hire is going to have to ask you to do it.
- Even if we were to accept that the second scenario does not constitute holding out, we would still require an operating certificate.
FAR 119.23(b) states:
Each person who conducts noncommon carriage (except as provided in § 91.501(b) of this chapter) or private carriage operations for compensation or hire with airplanes having a passenger-seat configuration of less than 20 seats, excluding each crewmember seat, and a payload capacity of less than 6,000 pounds shall—
(1) Comply with the certification and operations specifications requirements in subpart C of this part;
(2) Conduct those operations in accordance with the requirements of part 135 of this chapter, except for those requirements applicable only to commuter operations; and
(3) Be issued operations specifications in accordance with those requirements.
The bottom line would appear to be this: when flying for compensation or hire, you need an operating certificate, regardless of whether or not you are holding out, unless you fall under Part 91 Subpart K or the Part 119 exemptions.
However, the above scenario is still frequently tossed around.
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