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How The FAA Shot Down 'Uber For Planes' (fee.org)
SonicSpike quotes a report from the Foundation for Economic Education that first appeared at Forbes: Imagine traveling from Boston to Martha's Vineyard in under an hour and for less than $70. Believe it or not, this option was available from Flytenow's website or app, by looking for a general aviation pilot who was making that trip, and then splitting the cost with that pilot and whoever else was sharing the flight. Entrepreneurs were bringing private air travel to the masses until Flytenow's leadership met with members of the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure that they were complying with all laws and regulations. Instead of embracing this service, the FAA used tortuous logic to ban Flytenow and other online flight-sharing websites because it considered these to be "common carriers" (such as Delta Airlines). Private pilots cannot possibly comply with the myriad regulations that apply to the large airlines. In what follows, Flytenow founders Alan Guichard and Matt Voska explain why the federal government should make the FAA allow flight sharing to get off the ground.
Excepting that, as with traditional ride sharing, as opposed to hiring, the pilot was making that flight anyways, and he's fully certified for general flying, just not taking paying passengers.
I don't read AC A human right
It's a difference of Part 91 (non-commercial) operations and Part 135 (commercial non-scheduled) operations and Part 121 (common carrier) operations.
Under Part 91, pilots may share the operational cost of the flight equally with the passengers . The pilot shall not pay less of the share than any passenger and shall not be compensated additionally for their time and service.
Under Part 135 commercial but unscheduled flights (think charter), pilots and aircraft must pass a much more stringent set of requirements (such as crew rests and aircraft maintenance). Pilots and companies operating under 135 may be compensated for services.
Under Part 121 scheduled common carrier flights has even more stringent pilot certification, crew and aircraft maintenance requirements.
The FAA is arguing that once you post your flight intention, looking for passengers to join, you are now a Part 121 flight.
The FAA are arguing
Actually, yes. GA pilots have a much worse safety profile that commercial carriers. Much worse.
That's because the FAA has long allowed you to take more risks by yourself than with paying passengers. The big issue (aside from the FAA's inability to cope with the modern world) is that there is definately a slippery slope between casual ride sharing and flying somewhere with passengers for a buck. You aren't supposed to make money flying passengers with the current ride sharing rules - but commercial airlines have lost money for years. Should we allow them to run unregulated passenger services because they don't make money?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Umm. no.
A private pilot is forbidden from taking more than pro rata share of flight costs from passengers.
so if you were my friend, and we wanted to go to vegas for the weekend, i could allow you to reimburse me up to 1/2 the price i paid to rent the plane (but I could NOT accept more than 1/2 from you).
What the FAA didn't like about Flytenow is that they were "holding out", ie, offering air service to people, which requires a part 121 or 135 license for the "airline". The pilot would need to then be a commercial pilot or airline transport pilot.
All of the above has zero to do with weather.
ANY pilot (Private, Commercial, or ATP) can fly in the clouds if they have an "Instrument Rating". Regardless of how many people and dogs they have on board. You are forbidden to fly in the clouds without an instrument rating.
that's why i'm becoming a private pilot, so I can take my family and I and avoid all that.
the plane i use flys slower than a 737 (about 1/4 the speed), but there I park 8' from the airplane, we don't have to get there early, and there is no security line/etc.
there's also no worry about being late and missing my flight. the plane will leave when we're all there and i'm satisfied it's a safe trip to take.
Pilots will generally tell you that for about 500 miles or less, private flying will beat commercial door to door. That's a rule of thumb, but gives you an idea. It depends how far your home is from your departure airports and how far your destination is from a GA airport and the commercially served airport.
It would never be cheaper to fly myself, but it can be cheaper to fly my family of 4. So let's say I want to go to Kallspel, MT. I could get a $200 ticket, but would need one for each family member ($800) or I could fly my private plane (say 5 hours each way at $80/hr) = the same money, but not TSA theater, no getting there early, etc.
You are, of course, lying very well. My license says "commercial pilot" and I was tested to higher standards than when I got a "private pilot" certificate. Further, the airplane I fly most certainly does not meet the standards for hire, as I have not complied wth the 100 hour inspection requirements in the last 100 hours of flight time, and additionally, the engine is beyond the manufacturers recommended overhaul, and legal for private flight but not commercial flight.
Additionally, there is another level of requirement levied upon air taxi operations. They have to have demonstrated to the FAA that they have maintenance processes, pilot proficiency processes and the like. These rules were figured out the hard way, and calling it "uber-like" doesn't magically make safety requirements or federal law go away.
A nit pick.
A commercial pilot's license lets you be hired to take cargo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
An ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) license is required to take passengers for hire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And of course a type rating for the type of plane you're flying.
It depends.
If the pilot is a private pilot, they are not allowed to fly for money, period. The FAA has allowed a small exception to that, in that it is possible to split the immediate incidental costs (fuel, other consumables) for the flight with other passengers in the plane, provided everyone is paying their share.
So yes, you get less than half the trip cost - because you're only allowed to ask for effectively gas money (and oil - some engines chew through a quart an hour). You're not allowed to split costs like maintenance or other per-flight hour costs (e.g., if you rent the plane). So maintenance and other costs are borne completely by the pilot.
Where it gets tricky is the intent of the flight. Did the pilot make the flight plans and then asked if anyone wanted to come? Or did someone ask him to fly there and the pilot made up an excuse.
E.g., if the pilot was flying from LA to Las Vegas to spend the weekend gambling, and then a friend asked if he could come along as he has to attend a wedding there, that is OK. It is not OK if the friend asks if he could go to Vegas to attend the wedding, then the pilot makes plans to play some slots (excepting of course, if the pilot was to accept no remuneration - perhaps they just wanted to fly for fun and gave their friend a free ride).
The other part is that the person asking to come along must be known to the pilot in advance - i.e., a friend, associate already known. It can't be two random strangers who were matched up on a website, for example. This is the "tortured" part of the interpretation, but it's been around long enough and interpreted that way for years.
Note that all of this flies out of the window if no money changes hands - without remuneration, the pilot is free to do anything he wishes. This is how charities like Hope Air and the like work - they at most offer the pilot a tax credit for the portion of the flight, but most pilots will instead just fly the patient or animal for free.
Effectively, private pilots are not supposed to do it for money - it's just the FAA has allowed a very narrow exception to accommodate some common requests. The "Uber for the sky" companies are trying to take that exception and turn it into a commercial license alternate.
The FAA can just as well close the exception because it was created as a privilege for private pilots.
And of course, if you're a commercial pilot, then you won't be as cheap because you went through the extra training and want to make some money back as real income
If you own (or rent) an airplane, you can hire a CPL to fly you around in it. If a CPL owns an airplane and wants to fly people around for money, it involves a bunch of extra paperwork, but it doesn't require an ATP.
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Private pilots can't carry passengers for compensation - with a few, narrowly defined exceptions. These are on the written exam and part of the oral exam given on their checkride. Private pilots are NOT required to have insurance.
All non-ultralight planes get an annual inspection, but those planes used for hire need to be inspected every 100 hours of flight time.
The bar for a commercial pilot is not that high - 250 hours flight time, some additional instruction, a few extra maneuvers on the checkride and more stringent standards on the other maneuvers, but nothing that difficult. The only other change is that you need to have a 2nd class medical certificate, which I believe is required every year. Airline Transport Pilot (the license required to fly for the airlines) is much more difficult, and requires 1500 hours of flight time. They FAA stated that only the commercial certificate is needed for Flytenow.
This is not that difficult to understand. If you just went through basic ground school, or even read a book or two on learning to fly (which can be downloaded for free from the FAA), they would have known this.
I'm not sure why the Flytenow founders didn't bother trying to research this before starting, but it's spelled out in FAA Advisory Circular 120-12A (April 26, 1986). There is no tortuous logic, just defined regulations that they were in direct violation of. Just because Uber has temporarily gotten away with ignoring laws and regulations in some jurisdiction is no reason to think that the FAA would give them a pass. They didn't try to find out, or didn't like the answer that was clearly explained and went ahead anyway. Either way, their stupidity in their business planning isn't exactly being met with sympathy, except by those who don't know what they're talking about.
https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/advisory_circulars/index.cfm/go/document.information/documentID/22647
It's not a dense document, it's 4 pages long in clear, non-technical English.
Relevant excerpts:
"A carrier becomes a common carrier when it "holds itself out" or to a segment of the public, as willing to furnish transportation within the limits of its facilities to any person who wants it."
"There are four elements in defining a common carrier; (1) a holding out of a willingness to (2) transport persons or property (3) from place to place (4) for compensation. This "holding out" which makes a person a common carrier can be done in many ways and it does not matter how it is done."
There are many examples given of "holding out", but the one that is most relevant in my opinion is:
"A carrier flying charters for only one organization may be a common carrier if membership in the organization and participation in the flights are, in effect, open to a significant segment of the public."
And the statement they really, really should have read before starting the business:
"Persons who have questions concerning intended operation of their aircraft are encouraged to discuss their proposed operation with the Regional Counsel of the FAA region in which it intends to establish its principal business office. Such early interviews will materially assist the applicant in avoiding many of the "pitfalls" which could result in illegal common carriage operations."
You cannot be paid for your time or collect a penny more than ACTUAL costs as a private pilot to take somebody (other than yourself) or something someplace.
You cannot even collect full actual costs. The pilot must be paying a full share of the costs, and no, you cannot include the thousands of dollars it took you to get your license as part of the costs for a ride-share.
Not only that, but those doing the sharing must be for a related purpose. You cannot set up a system where three other people pay 3/4 of the costs of a trip unless the trip has a shared purpose for all four people. "One person wants to go shopping at Macy's, one person is going for a work meeting, and one is connecting to a commercial flight to ..." is still illegal. "All four are going to the same meeting ..." is ok.
So your life long friend can pay your expenses when you fly him out to go fishing someplace.
No, he cannot. He can pay a share of the costs, but not all of them. The reasoning behind that includes the fact that being able to log hours as PIC is a benefit to the pilot, and so is "remuneration" in part for the flight.
I am a private pilot and the only tortured thing here is how the service tried to get around "holding out" and "compensation". Obviously the FAA doesn't see it this way. If you are a private pilot you're held to a lower standard - of training, medically, during the examination, and for the aircraft - than a commercial pilot. Which is held to a much lower standard than an airline pilot. It's not really that safe, either - the GA fatal accident rate is comparable to motorcycles, and that doesn't include a bunch of PPL cowboys feeling pressured to go in marginal conditions, which this service would surely promote. Would you jump on the back of a random motorcycle with an unknown driver?
A bunch of people have said that you can't be paid to fly. It's worse than that - you can't receive any benefit in exchange for your flying. All you can do is offset your losses. The safest thing is to pay your own way, then everything's legal. If you split costs with your buddy and he buys you a steak dinner, the FAA will kick your ass. Yes, this has happened. So too did they punish the guy who ferried his bar-owning friend's customers to the bar "as a favor" when the charter flight fell through. Even though they couldn't find any direct compensation, they still won on the theory that "there's no way someone is out $2k without at least a quid pro quo, and in any case think of the passengers who were expecting a charter flight to commercial standards"
Most people are used to licenses - rights - that can't be easily taken away. Like your drivers' license - that's a court case if they want it. Being a pilot means you have a certificate and it can be taken away much more easily (i.e., no courts involved) if the FAA feels it is appropriate. And they have no trouble convincing the oversight (the NTSB administrative law judges are the highest you can go) that their interpretation of the "holding out" rules is the correct one.
Flytenow didn't shut down because the FAA said "no", at least not directly. They shut down because once the FAA publishes an opinion of how they see the regulations and intend to enforce them, you'd be stupid as hell to fly if they said "we think this is against the rules and will prosecute people for doing it". It'll stick, too, barring "arbitrary and capricious".
If you can find an example of people "lawyering" with the FAA and succeeding, I'd like to see it. There's plenty of examples of people thinking they've found a loophole and are smarter than the FAA lawyers - but they all forget that the FAA isn't bound by the letter of the regulations (they're not laws!) and that they're allowed to punish people for what they meant to say so long as it's reasonable regardless of whether it's explicitly written down. The FAA's intent is very clear - you can go camping with your buddy and split the costs, but you can't be a charter service. If they think you're basically being a charter service, they'll burn you regardless of how you try to wiggle out of it.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The line here is "operate like a business" or "flying for compensation" not who's paying the costs. Your employer can say provide you an aircraft you can fly for free (thus paying all the costs) and you can take that aircraft on a business trip as a private pilot. However, they CANNOT pay you to take passengers or cargo places in the aircraft as part of your job function. If folks just happened to be passengers heading to the same meeting, it's starting to get into the grey area but as long as the flying is incidental to your real job it's likely going to be OK with the FAA.
This is one of the best answers here...
If you are an accountant and you happen to be a pilot, and the company wants three of you to go to Orlando for an accountants convention and the company is offering to pay your airline tickets, or gas money, or whatever to get there, and all three of you are going because ALL THREE OF YOU are accountants, then yes, the company can pay for the whole airplane rental.
But if you're Bob from accounting, and the company needs 3 lawyers to go to Orlando to a lawyer convention and you didn't need to go, then the company CAN'T rent a plane and have you fly there, even if they don't pay you anything for the flight.
As noted by someone else, you are incorrect about requiring an ATP to carry passengers. You can hire a commercial pilot to fly your plane, or a rented plane. You can charter an aircraft (including pilot) from any number of places,that operate under part 135 instead of part 121 (scheduled service).
With regard to type ratings, this is also incorrect--those are only required for aircraft larger than 12,500 pounds. To put that into perspective, a Cessna Caravan (capable of being configured to haul 9 passengers) weighs less than 9,000 lbs fully loaded.
PP-ASEL.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?