In the unlikely event that a flight is questioned by the FAA, they will base
their findings largely on what the passenger perceives. If your passenger
believes (or mistakenly says because he doesn't understand the issues) that
the flight only took place because he wanted to go somewhere, they could
bust you. If you both can establish a shared purpose, or you can establish
that you would have gone anyway for your own reasons and your passenger just
tagged along, the passenger can pay for half of the direct costs (or one
third if there are three in the plane, etc.) These costs can not include
insurance, depreciation, maintenance, etc. and the pilot must pay his share
as well.

The key is to be sure your passengers know what to say, i.e. "He was coming
down and said I could come."; Not, "I asked him to fly me down and he
agreed." It would be hard to explain your passenger paying for part of a leg
he was not on.

These questions often generate long threads because there is a big
disconnect between the narrow legality, common sense, and real world
enforcement. It is technically a violation for a non-commercial pilot to
move a friend's airplane to another airport. The free flight time can be
considered compensation because it could be valuable in getting an advanced
rating or a flying job.

I asked my local FSDO about this and they said, "That's nuts. Where did you
ever hear anything as wacky as that?" I faxed them the cite and the opinion
letter and they called back to say that I was right. They also said that
they were far too busy and reasonable to every worry about something like
that.

However, if it came to the FAA's attention that you had "friends" all over
the region and were wracking up 50 - 100 hours a month of free time moving
airplanes while you were clearly building time to go for a commercial
license, they might yank your chain.

The narrow interpretations are often pulled out when the FAA has other
reasons for trying to shut someone down on the "charging Al Capone with tax
evasion" principle.

If you are an otherwise low profile pilot, you can get away with a lot. If a
cute interpretation of the rules is making your flying substantially less
expensive, you are probably over the line and could have a problem.

Be wary about flying into big events like the Super Bowl. There are often
random ramp checks to rope in pilots trying to make a quick buck. If you
haven't briefed your passengers on what to say, you could get into trouble
on an otherwise legit flight.


--

Roger Long