The money

How cost sharing works

Sharing the direct costs of a flight is allowed within clear limits. This is what those limits are, and how Rightseat keeps you inside them.

The share is yours in full
Never more than half of the flight
Settled between the two of you

The pilot pays too: The divisor is everybody on board, and the pilot is one of them.
Half is the ceiling: A passenger may never be asked more than half of what the flight costs.
Checked before it appears: Against the arithmetic of that flight, and against what others have asked.
Paid to the pilot: The share is settled between the two of you, at what the flight actually cost.

The rule

Two sentences, and everything follows from them

A private pilot may share the direct costs of a flight with the people on board. They may not make money doing it, and they may not sit out their own share. Everything Rightseat does with rates follows from those two sentences.

A direct cost is what the flight itself costs. Everything an aeroplane costs whether or not it leaves the hangar belongs to the person who owns it, and is not shared.

What counts as a direct cost

The hour on the aircraft, or the fuel it burns.
The landing and handling fees.
The airfield charges on the day.

What does not

The annual and the maintenance.
The hangar.
The licence, and the training behind it.
The pilot’s time.

The rule is European, not national

Cost sharing is settled at European level, in Article 6(4a) of Regulation (EU) No 965/2012 — the air operations rules drawn up by EASA. That article is what allows a private pilot to carry people without the flight becoming commercial air transport, and it states two conditions outright: the direct costs are shared by all occupants, the pilot included, and no more than six people share them.

Across the EASA countries: The same article applies in every EU member state and in Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. A national authority may add to it, so a flight starting abroad is worth a moment of reading before you plan it.; The rules at EASA →
The United Kingdom: Britain left EASA and carried the same article into law of its own, where the Civil Aviation Authority enforces it. The CAA also publishes the fullest guidance on it anywhere, down to what may and may not be counted as a direct cost. A flight to or from a British field works the same way.; The guidance at the CAA →

This page puts the rule in plain language. The authorities’ own texts are the ones that count.

The sum

The share is per person, including the pilot

Divide the direct costs by everyone on board, the pilot included. An aeroplane that costs 280 an hour with four seats works out at 70 a seat for an hour of flying with a full aircraft. Fly with three on board and the same hour is 280 divided by three, a little over 93 each.

That is also the ceiling. The fewer people on board, the more each one carries — but never more than the flight actually costs divided by the number of people in it.

Which leaves one case: a pilot and one passenger. Half each is the most permissive split there is, and it is where the ceiling of half comes from.

What the aeroplane costs per hour €250.00

Time in the air

On board, pilot included

This flight costs

€375.00

€125.00 Pilot

€125.00 Passenger

The most a passenger may be asked on this flight is €187.50, half of what it costs. Rightseat will not publish a flight above that.

The figure you agreed is a ceiling, not a price.

On the day

No flight is set in stone

The amount beside a flight is the share of the flight as it was planned. Flights move: a passenger asks to go over the village they grew up in, the weather shuts the destination, something at the home field sends everybody somewhere else. The rule does not move with them — a passenger never carries more than an equal share, and never more than half — but the amount that works out to does.

Shorter or cheaper than planned

Everybody’s share drops by itself, with nobody having to ask. The figure beside the flight was the most it could be, not the price of it.

Longer or dearer than planned

Nobody’s share goes up unless they agree to it: the pilot carries the difference until the people paying it have said yes.

A detour somebody asked for

Whoever asks for one asks for the whole cabin, and everybody in it carries the same part of it. A passenger paying extra for a leg of their own is no longer sharing a flight — they are buying one.

Whether a detour is flown at all is the pilot’s decision on the day, and they owe nobody a reason for it.

Before it is published

Every rate is checked twice

It is what keeps a shared flight from turning into a sold one, and it errs on the side of saying no.

Against the arithmetic: The hourly rate of the aircraft, the expected flying time and the number of people on board. A rate that is clearly above what the flight can cost is refused outright.
Against what others have asked: What pilots have actually asked on comparable flights. A rate that is unusually high but explicable gets a warning rather than a refusal.

The settlement is between you

Rightseat charges nothing per seat and holds nothing: what you agree, you settle between yourselves, in whatever way suits you both.

The figures on route pages

A route page may show a range rather than a figure, drawn from what pilots have asked on earlier flights over the same distance. It is a sense of scale, not a price: what you share is worked out for the flight you actually make, with the people actually on board.

Routes people fly →

Now put your own aeroplane in it

The platform works the share out for every flight you publish, before it goes anywhere near the site.

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