Mr PAJ, not sure what you mean by operator's licence with regard to numerical controls, but there are basically three license tiers for both hackney carriages (HCs) and private hire vehicles (PHVs):
- driver (badge)
- vehicle (plate)
- operator's licence (to enable acceptance of bookings, but that's not required in relation to accepting an HC accepting street hire, nor indeed pre-bookings)
So there's basically three different private hire licences, and two hackney carriage licences.
The only licence on which councils can impose numerical controls are HC *vehicle* licences. Therefore not sure about your reference to the driver waiting for an operator's licence is about, but I suspect it's actually a HC vehicle licence he's referring to.
And, of course, there are
always private hire operators and HC circuits and proprietors looking for drivers, but all that indicates is that they're trying to maximise
their profit, whether or not it's worth it from the perspective of individual drivers.
So if you get your vehicle badged and plated, you'll easily get a place on a circuit, which of course entails paying them a fee, and they will provide you with work in return for that fee (but most of it
won't be airport stuff).
But if you want to get your own airport work, you'll need an operator's licence along with the badge and plate, but you don't need an operator's licence if you're working for a circuit, because it's their operator's licence which is used to accept the bookings, which are then funnelled to individual drivers. (And Uber is precisely the same as regards all of the above.)
So in theory doing just airport work via your own operator's licence is fine, but it's finding the work that's the difficult bit, and it's usually a competitive market, because lots of people have similar plans to yourself