Here is a bit of clarification and additional information about the current situation, plus some history, from my friend aviation attorney Rick Durden:
"Until the last few months, if you made a flight for Angel Flight you could not legally get reimbursed for fuel unless you and the organization complied with the very complicated waiver (if the organization had the waiver and only 8 do). I know there were volunteer pilot organizations that were illegally reimbursing pilots for fuel; I know of only a couple FAA enforcement actions. A law was passed this spring allowing medical transport groups to reimburse volunteer pilots for fuel and directing the FAA to set up regulations for the process - I'm on a committee that is working with the FAA to issue regulations that are not as horrendous as the waiver because the wavier is so difficult that virtually no pilots are complying - it's cheaper to pay for the gas than to comply with the waiver.
However, right now, there is a big opening, any medical transport volunteer pilot organization can reimburse pilots for fuel until the FAA puts the regs into place, which won't be until sometime next year.
So, if you want to fly your buddy to Mayo, have him go through a volunteer pilot organization, you take the mission and get reimbursed.
Actually, from what I can tell, the regs on pilots getting paid when carrying passengers go back to the horrific railroad accidents of the last half of the 1800s. They were so frequent and so bad that (capitalism wasn't self-regulating, most people lived where they had no choice as to which railroad they could take) regulations slowly were introduced and lawsuits against the railroads for negligence developed a field of transportation law. It boiled down to this: a paying passenger must be given the highs standard of care (above the standard of ordinary care).
That carried over to aviation. A pilot carrying a passenger who was paying for the flight was obligated to provide the highest standard of care - which evolved into regulations regarding required pilot training, certification, aircraft maintenance and so forth, just as it had with the railroads.
But, some exceptions were carved out: A pilot carrying a paying passenger on a sightseeing flight (read barnstormer flying from a field and giving a flight that lasted maybe five minutes) was not under the highest standard of care obligation.
Then came the whole fight over what was "paying passenger?" That law evolved into a pilot who was carrying passengers for their own purposes was not obligated to the highest standard of care because he wasn't getting paid and the passenger wasn't paying. The fine line that was drawn (and lines have to be drawn somewhere) was that the occupants could split the cost of the fuel (or rental) and the pilot had to pay his pro-rata share.
The question is not the right of the pilot (pilot's have few "rights" as flying is a privilege, subject to revocation), the issue is the protection of the innocent passenger who is not in control of the airplane and what level of protection is owed to that passenger. If the passenger is going for a ride with a friend and splitting the cost, the passenger should not have the expectation of some high level of safety. The moment the passenger pays for the flight, beyond splitting costs, the passenger has an expectation (under the law) of the highest level of safety and therefore the pilot must comply with the regulations of Part 135 or 121.
When you think of the law as evolving from the perspective of protecting innocent passengers, it tends to make sense - such as why a pilot flying solo can do akro without a chute, but if there is a passenger, chutes must be worn. If you think of the law from the perspective of the pilot, it seems like everyone is trying to screw the pilot - which is often the case, but the pilot is the captain of the ship, is ultimately responsible for the safety of all aboard and has to bite the bullet when it comes to compliance with regulations that were created for passenger protection."
Sent from my Nexus 7
