The consultation makes significant emphasis on the reasonable difference in safety standards and training and oversight of commercial flights.
We all know that some commercial passengers are particularly nervous at the best of times.
The pandemic lockdowns put both commercial and non-commercial flights at a temporarily elevated level of risk until pilots got used to doing real flying again.
This AAIB bulletin appears to be an interesting example with a hint that use of a commercial sim might not be enough to fully de-risk a lack of currency of real flying.... and a potential disaster was averted by intervention of the tower controller and radar controller.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/aaib-special-bulletin-boeing-737-800-g-fdzf-deviation-from-expected-flightpath-during-a-go-around-aberdeen-airportI dont recall any news of any of the airlines notifying passengers of their increased risk to allow the passengers to assess all the facts on the safety of the commercial public transport flight they were about to undertake, so that passengers could assess whether they wanted to cancel or postpone their trip.
Did these passengers have to do a pandemic special "Passenger Declaration and Consent" Form?
A bit like the form in this consultation with similarly worded items such as
-The pilot has fully briefed me/us on the certain risks and dangers which are applicable to aviation.
- In signing this declaration, you are confirming that you fully understand and accept in full the risks that can be involved in flying as a passenger in a public transport flight.
The proposed form omitted there is a risk of death.
There is a risk of death in ALL forms of private and public transport even when the professionals are at the controls.
This is perhaps something most people choose to ignore or just dont think about it in their daily routine (or some people would never go anywhere beyond easy walking distance).
Providers of motorsports events and experiences have a consent form that reminds participants there is a risk of death and serious injury with some wording attempting to indemnify the organisers and staff from being chased by the participants relatives/lawyers if things go badly wrong.
There will be people that dont understand the legal terminology and simply sign because they want to enjoy the experience.
Notionally the risk will be higher with amateurs with a licence to operate a vehicle (and the general public will have many experiences of professional and non-profession car/van drivers making mistakes to support this assumption, and that anyone can make a mistake).
So there should be an expectation of knowing there will be some difference regardless of whether it is for a plane, a boat, a car, a van, a motorbike, .... even if they dont know the actual difference is for the specific mode of transport.
In general the public have no knowledge of the different kind of pilot licences and ratings so even if they asked to see these documents they would not know what they are supposed to look like. They have no idea of their validity for the airspace, the specific aircraft type and country of registration of the aircraft, and country of issue of pilot licence.