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by snowballsteve
4365 days ago
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It seems like their operation would fall in the exact same legal situation as Angel flights, or Pilot's for Paws, or Lighthawk. None of which seem to have common-purpose. Now these organizations seem to ignore compensation issues, but there are cases where logging hours alone was deemed compensation so it is arguable that compensation does occur irregardless of monetary transactions. I can't help but notice though that these organizations often require 500 or 1000 hours of their volunteer pilots, which could likely make many of them CPL holders already. |
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The FAA has conclusively ruled (first in 1993) that the ability of a pilot, who is paying 100% of the costs of the flight, to claim a charitable deduction for those costs is NOT compensation.
Flight time that you paid 100% of the costs to do is never a problem in terms of a compensation concern for a private pilot.
From: http://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2012/media/JulAug201...
As you probably know, the FAA interprets “compensation” as meaning the receipt of anything of value. However, the FAA Chief Counsel’s office has clarified the issue of charitable deductions in a number of interpretations. Specifically, it has stated that “since Congress has provided for the tax deductibility of some costs of charitable acts, the FAA will not treat charitable deductions of such costs, standing alone, as constituting ‘compensation or hire’ for the purpose of enforcing [the Federal Aviation Regulations].” (Note: This interpretation is specifically addressed in FAA Order 8900.1 (Volume 4, Chapter 5, Section 1, paragraph 4-922) which also states that “inspectors should not treat the tax deductibility of costs as constituting ‘compensation or hire’ when flights are conducted for humanitarian purposes.”)
It would be hard to argue that Flytenow's operations fall into the category of "conducted for humanitarian purposes", plus the fact that money is changing hands, so this situation isn't at all like AngelFlight, PnP, Dove Flights (Citation Special Olympics airlift), etc. in the eyes of the FAA.