It’s a mild relief to discover that while the FAA in the US is trying to reinvent its regulations with respect to aircraft management and certificate ‘sharing,’ the situation is a bit calmer in Europe.

On assignment by EBAN to discover the cause of grousing by certain European charter operators over “unfair competitive advantages,” The Air Charter Guide has determined that most of this angst is directed at fractional programmes and less at the JAA and companies trying to ‘share AOCs,’ where not qualified or entitled.

In fact, it would seem that the whole idea of piggybacking or certificate sharing is several steps less adventurous (and therefore less likely to place companies at risk) than what has been practiced (and permitted by the authorities) in the US.

Aggravated by archaic concepts like ‘proving runs,’ where the FAA has required US operators to fly expensive hours on corporate jets to demonstrate operator capability, US aviation companies have long since adopted practices of circumvention of expected procedure.

A classic example would be the alternative of buying failing charter companies for their certificates and the aircraft listed thereon, and then conforming practices to the pre-existing paper after the fact. This has the effect of saving months or even years of FAA foot-dragging before a company can operate.

A recent spate of air taxi accidents has caught the industry by surprise, however, and FAA in Washington has begun to discover to its chagrin what operators and its local FAA offices have been doing for decades. The party’s over. Everybody will now ‘take a number’ and report to ‘window 13’ and wait a year (or more) for the FAA to issue certificates and any modifications thereto. Such is progress!

US management programmes frequently include options to allow aircraft owners to provide their own pilots on a commercial trip, provided all air taxi regulatory requirements have been trained or imposed by the participating certificate holder. We don’t see this practiced in Europe.

Instead, while aircraft of third party ownership may be managed and flown for commercial use (and the UK and France display more examples of this than, say, Austria or Germany) the crew come from the commercially certificated operator’s pool of pilots. The US will doubtless revert to this more ‘buttoned down’ procedure, as FAA have considerable concerns about operational control and accountability, and will probably follow the European example anyway for reasons of international consistency.

So, European operators – fear not. Piggybacking appears to be a uniquely American phenomenon in the air carrier world, developed in the eighties by the Dallas branch of FAA and AMR Combs, as The Alliance programme. If Europe considers aircraft management ‘certificate piggybacking,’ it should rename it and reduce its pejorative sting. Flying other people’s aircraft is always going to be a healthier financial proposition for an air taxi operator.

The reduction in capital risk and the onus of aluminium ownership is something the scheduled airlines could only dream about. It’s a little-celebrated fact that the connected profit and loss statements of every scheduled airline since the beginning, would produce enough loss to bankrupt many countries.

Currently most of the managed aircraft in Germany are Russian owned, while the ratio of operator-owned to managed aircraft seems to be two to one elsewhere. Contrast that with the US, where 85 per cent of the fleet is managed. Granted, while this attracts some cowboys, whose industry debt, failed promises, and recent aircraft accidents should qualify them for the hangman’s noose, the average aviation company enjoys a lot more opportunity.

Notwithstanding recent setbacks to the EU at constitutional levels, increased EU membership means increased commercial geography for Europe. That means air travel. European operators who are successful at convincing private aircraft owners to defray expenses with air taxi revenue will contribute to the growth of the industry as a whole, and change the European evaluation of the corporate jet. If that is going to be labelled ‘piggybacking,’ then let’s piggyback!

Fred Gevalt is founder and ceo of The Air Charter Guide. A five thousand hour pilot, Gevalt has been an avid supporter of general aviation for almost 40 years