Cost sharing in club and syndicate aircraft in the UK

One of your syndicate members wants to take two friends to the coast on Saturday. They've booked the aircraft, the forecast looks kind, and now they're asking the group what they can charge. They want to know which hourly rate counts, whether the monthly fee can go in, who keeps the forms, and whether they can pin a note to the clubhouse noticeboard asking for a third passenger.

In a UK club or syndicate, the member who's flying arranges a cost sharing flight, and the hourly rate they actually pay (up to the local market rate) is what goes into the direct costs. But the aircraft, the rate and the rules all belong to the group, so the questions a pilot can't settle alone end up with the committee. Everything here is UK law and CAA guidance as it has stood since the changes of 1 October 2025.

The short version, for a UK club or syndicate:

• The member, rather than the group, operates and arranges the flight.
• The hourly rate the member actually pays is a direct cost, up to the local market rate for the type.
• Monthly fees, subscriptions and insurance are never in the sum.
• The pilot keeps the passenger declarations for six months.

Our page on cost sharing flights in the UK covers the rules from the pilot's side, with the declaration and advert requirements in full. This guide is about the parts that land on the group.

What the rules mean for the group#

The member operates the flight, not the club#

The law says a cost sharing flight must be operated by a private individual, and that no pilot may be employed or contracted as a pilot for that flight. The CAA adds that cost sharing flights can't form part of a business activity through an organisation.

So the club or syndicate doesn't arrange them, sell them or take bookings for them. A member does all of that on their own account. An instructor can share costs with friends on their day off, because they aren't flying under a contract for that flight. They can't do it as part of their club work.

Flying members of the public is another matter, with its own rules. Article 6(4a)(c) of the UK Air Operations regulation allows introductory flights by a UK approved or declared training organisation (an ATO or DTO) or by an organisation that promotes aerial sport or leisure aviation. The aircraft has to be owned or dry leased by the organisation, no profit can be distributed outside it, and flights involving non-members must be only a marginal activity. NCO.GEN.103 then says these flights must start and end at the same aerodrome or operating site, by day under VFR, overseen by a nominated person, and meet any further conditions the CAA sets. Article 15 of the Air Navigation Order 2016 sets matching conditions for introductory flights under the Order.

We'd keep the two kinds of flight well apart in your rules. The last thing you want is a member's cost share being mistaken for a club flight, or the other way round.

Your hourly rate is the direct cost, up to the market rate#

Direct costs are fuel, oil, airfield charges and aircraft rental fees at the current market rate. CAP 1590 defines market rate as the average rental price of the same type of aircraft in the same area on the date of the flight.

In a club aircraft, the hire charge the member pays is the rental fee. If your rate is in line with what other clubs nearby charge for the same type, it counts in full.

This is the bit people most often get wrong. A member on a discounted rate, such as prepaid block hours, shares costs at the rate they actually paid. Article 6(4a)(a) of the Air Operations regulation and article 13 of the Order both describe the passengers' money as a contribution to the direct costs "otherwise payable by the pilot in command". So a pilot who charged passengers on the full rate card while paying less themselves would be making a profit, and the rules don't allow that. CAP 1590 lists the direct costs in full.

For syndicates, the CAA's guidance material is specific. In a jointly owned aircraft, the hourly rate a joint owner normally pays for using the aircraft is a direct cost, and it may be no more than the average market rental price. A syndicate with a high hourly rate and a low monthly fee can't pass the whole hourly rate to passengers if it's above what local clubs charge for the type.

If your rules name a market rate, keep a dated note of the rate cards you compared. Then if anyone ever asks how you got to the figure, you can show them.

Monthly fees, subscriptions and insurance stay with the pilot#

CAP 1590 says annual costs, meaning the cost of keeping, maintaining, insuring and operating the aircraft over a calendar year, aren't direct costs. The pilot or operator pays them, with no contribution from passengers. The CAA's own example is club membership fees for renters. A syndicate's monthly contribution to hangarage, insurance and the maintenance fund is an annual cost too, however you collect it, so it never goes into the cost sharing sum.

There's a knock-on effect worth explaining to members. A syndicate that recovers most of its fixed costs through the monthly fee will have a lower hourly rate, so less of each flight can be shared. That suits owners who fly a lot. But it's kinder to tell them now than after they've promised friends a cheap day out.

The paperwork is the pilot's job#

The law says the operator of the flight keeps the passenger declarations for six months and produces them when an Authorised Person asks, and CAP 1590 puts that on the "pilot/operator". On a flight operated by a private individual, that means the member keeps them. The club office doesn't need a new filing drawer.

Two points in the CAA's guidance material save syndicates a lot of forms:

• Fellow pilots need no declaration. A passenger who holds or has held a pilot's licence, proved to the pilot in command, doesn't need one.
• Repeat passengers reuse their form. If the same passenger flew with the same pilot on a cost sharing flight in the last six calendar months, the original record is updated with the new flight and kept for six months from that flight.

A passenger under 18, or anyone who can't sign, needs someone with legal authority for them to accept the risks on their behalf.

Adverts on the club noticeboard#

Only the pilot who will fly the flight (or, in a permit aircraft, the flight's operator, who must be a private individual) may advertise a cost sharing flight, and the advert must carry the details listed on our cost sharing page. CAP 1590 adds that a flight shouldn't be offered to any destination and time a passenger chooses.

So the noticeboard is fine, as long as the right person pins the note. The club can let members post their own adverts there, in its newsletter or in a members' group. It shouldn't post on a member's behalf, and it should take down an advert that leaves out the required details. For flights arranged online, the CAA recommends using only platforms that have signed the UK Cost Sharing Charter.

Worked examples#

In a syndicate aircraft#

Say a group of eight owns a four-seat aircraft. Each member pays £150 a month towards the hangar, insurance and maintenance, and £110 an hour wet when they fly. Two other clubs nearby hire the same type at £215 and £225 an hour, so the market rate is £220, the average of the two local rates. The syndicate's rate is well below it.

One member flies two friends to the coast and back, 2.0 hours, and pays a £25 landing fee at the destination.

£245 divided by 3 is £81.67 to the penny, so round the passengers down to £81.66 and the pilot up to £81.68. The member's £150 monthly contribution stays out of the sum, even if you could argue part of it relates to this trip.

Now suppose the syndicate charged £240 an hour to keep the monthly fee low. The member could still put no more than the £220 market rate into the sum: 2.0 x £220 + £25 = £465, or £155 a passenger at most. The pilot would pay the other £40 of hire on top of their share.

In a club aircraft#

This time the club's rate card is £230 an hour wet, in line with other clubs nearby. A member has bought a block of 10 hours at £205 an hour. They fly 1.5 hours with three passengers and pay a £20 landing fee.

The equal share is £81.875, so the passengers pay at most £81.87 each and the pilot pays the other £81.89. Work it from the £230 card rate instead and you get a share of £91.25. That takes £28.14 more from the three passengers than the rules allow, and it's an easy slip to make when the rate card is the number on the wall.

The UK law on cost sharing#

Which set of rules applies depends on the aircraft:

• Part 21 aircraft, such as most certified singles, come under Article 6(4a)(a) of the UK's Air Operations regulation (Regulation (EU) No 965/2012 as kept in UK law) and point NCO.GEN.102 of its Annex VII. The Aviation Safety (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025 rewrote the first and added the second.
• Non-Part 21 aircraft, such as most permit aircraft, come under article 13 of the Air Navigation Order 2016, rewritten by the Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2025.

Both were rewritten with effect from 1 October 2025 and now set almost identical conditions. The small differences, such as who may place an advert, are noted above. The CAA explains them in CAP 1590, second edition, and its guidance material for NCO.GEN.102 is in CAA Decision No. 0054.

Gliding and balloon clubs, this part isn't for you. CAP 1590 says sailplanes, including powered sailplanes, and balloons have their own cost sharing provisions in Article 3(2)(a) of the separate UK sailplane and balloon operations regulations, so look there instead.

What to write into your rules#

A short cost sharing section in the club rules or syndicate agreement saves the committee from arguing over each case as it comes up (usually by email, usually on a Friday night). We'd cover:

1. Whether cost sharing is allowed in the group's aircraft, and any minimum hours or recency the group asks for. Your rules can be stricter than the law.
2. The rate that counts. Name the hourly rate members may use as the direct cost, and say that block-hour or discounted members use the rate they pay.
3. What's excluded. Subscriptions, monthly contributions, insurance and the maintenance fund.
4. Adverts. Members place their own, with the required details. The club doesn't advertise flights for members.
5. Records. The pilot keeps the declarations for six months. Say whether the group wants to see them.
6. Insurance. CAP 1590 makes the pilot in command responsible for making sure the flight is insured for cost sharing. Check what your policy says about cost sharing passengers and tell members in writing.
7. Introductory flights. If the club flies non-members, say these are club flights under the separate rules and aren't cost sharing.

Knowing the rate a member paid#

Every sum above starts from the rate the member actually paid, and for a block-hour or discounted member that isn't the rate card. In Volanti every flight is logged, priced at the group's own rates and charged to the member's account, so the member can see what each flight cost them. For a flight paid from a block of hours, the statement shows the full price with a credit that cancels it out, so work out the hourly rate from what the member paid for the block. The group shares one live calendar that blocks double bookings.

To be clear, Volanti doesn't handle cost sharing flights. It doesn't split costs between a pilot and passengers or collect declarations. Split My Flight, a separate free service also built by the Volanti team, does that: the pilot enters the flight and the passengers' emails, each passenger signs a declaration on their phone, and the pilot gets one document to carry. Our cost sharing page sets out the rules for pilots. See how a group runs one aircraft on the syndicates page, or look at a shared calendar and accounts for one aircraft.