Originally Posted by
Senior Skipper
I must admit that I am lost. I don't have my CPL yet (maybe that's why I don't know this stuff), but I don't see the problem with the initial question. Why would a CPL holder not be able to charge for his services? Why does it matter who supplies the plane?
Am I to understand that when I get my CPL, it would be illegal for me to charge my friends for a flight out to the Bahamas? I thought the cost sharing restriction was limited to PPL holders?
I think I'm missing something fairly big here. Would anybody be kind enough to educate me?
Sure. What you are probably missing is understanding that that there are levels of regulation.
There is a difference between a commercial =pilot= and a commercial =operator=. The basic difference is that, as a commercial pilot, you are allowed to be paid for your services as a pilot - being paid to fly.
But, the way the rules are set up, in order to provide air transportation services to others, you need to be a commercial =operator= and are subject to licensing and other requirements in parts of the FAR like 110, 135 and 121.
The rules get complicated, but the easiest way of describing the difference is that it's like the difference between being the bus driver and the bus company. The driver provides services as a driver and all he needs is a commercial drivers license; but the bus company, which is responsible for providing both bus and driver, has a whole separate set of regulations to deal with.
It's pretty much the same in flying. If you are going to transport paying members of the public or their cargo, the FAA wants you to meet more requirements that just showing you were able to pilot a Cutlass or Arrow during a simple checkride. It's going to want drug-testing programs, restrictions on the kind of weather you can fly in, minimum experience requirements, etc.
And just like the bus analogy, the difference usually comes down to whether you are just providing your services as a pilot (the driver) or you are also providing the airplane. And it doesn't make any difference if it's only one pilot with one airplane that he rents from an FBO or FedEx or United Airlines.
Your regulatory starting point is FAR 119.1. It starts out by saying that it sets out rules for acting as an "air carrier" or a "commercial operator" (as opposed to just as a pilot). If you go back to FAR 1.1, you'll see that a "commercial operator" is nothing more than "a person who, for compensation or hire, engages in the carriage by aircraft in air commerce of persons or property, other than as an air carrier or foreign air carrier..."
And then, in 119.1(e) it lists a series of commercial operations that do =not= require an operator certificate.
Like I said, not the easiest to understand and fortunately it's not gone into very much depth on the knowldge test or checkrides (most DEs don't really understand it that well), but if you try to keep the difference between being a paid pilot and being a paid operator in mind, you'll have a start on understanding it.