Uber-Style Flight-Sharing Service Shot Down by U.S. Court

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Who knew ridesharing for flights was even a thing, let alone being illegal. Would you use a service like this even if it was legal?

An Uber-style business that connects private pilots with travelers willing to split fuel costs and other expenses was shot down by a Washington, D.C., court. The judges on Friday declined Flytenow Inc.’s request to review a Federal Aviation Administration ruling that pilots who use the service to find passengers must have commercial licenses.
 
FAA has rules about that

anyone that thought this was going to work have no idea about aviation law
 
As harmless as this seems. It paves the way for a new challenge to Uber, and that is licensing. You will see cities and states start requiring a special license to run a cab server and push that on Uber drivers.
 
Brantoc said:
As harmless as this seems. It paves the way for a new challenge to Uber, and that is licensing. You will see cities and states start requiring a special license to run a cab server and push that on Uber drivers.
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There already are special licenses to run cab services. That's what "medallions" are when people are discussing them, and in some cities you can't even apply because they place a limit on the number of available licenses and must instead buy someone else's license... which they'll happily sell you for upwards of a million dollars in a place like NYC.

This is why Uber is in the news with countries around the world attempting to place restrictions and such(it's not just about the employment status of their drivers). The problem for locales wanting to regulate uber is that it's pretty difficult to identify a bunch of unmarked cars in most circumstances, otherwise they'd be all over it.
 
Not sure how successful this would have been if they had won the court case. As a Private Pilot, I wouldn't want someone I didn't know to be flying with me since the theft risk on a plane that can easily be worth the high side of $100,000 is somewhat higher then the risk on a Ford Fiesta.

Plus Aviation insurance companies are often more restrictive on use of aircraft then the FAA is.
 
Elios said:
FAA has rules about that

anyone that thought this was going to work have no idea about aviation law
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Made me look it up. A "private" license means you can't be compensated AT ALL to fly. So you can't even do some weird shenigans where you aren't paid for flying a customer directly. Being paid by someone else for flying, period, is against the rules.

Now I know there might be some people saying the government shouldn't be getting into peoples business. But flying is a whole different level of personal responsibility. When things go wrong, they go mighty wrong. Not to mention, just think of the noise pollution that ONE flying aircraft puts out.
 
  • Student: Cannot fly solo without proper endorsement from a certificated flight instructor (CFI). Passenger carrying is prohibited.
  • Sport: Cannot carry more than one passenger, authorized to fly only light-sport aircraft and are limited to daytime flying only. If an individual elects to receive additional instruction, some of the limitations may be removed.
  • Recreational: May fly aircraft of up to 180 horsepower (130 kW) and 4 seats in the daytime for pleasure only.
  • Private: May fly for pleasure or personal business. Private pilots cannot be paid, compensated to fly, or hired by any operator.
  • Commercial: Can be paid, compensated to fly, or hired by operators and are required to have higher training standards than private or sport pilots.
 
I believe there *are* allowances for situations where the passenger happens to be going the same place as the pilot, and they split the fuel costs.

It looks like getting a commercial license requires 150-250 hours of flight time, compared to the 40 hours required for a private pilot's license.
 
westrock2000 said:
  • Student: Cannot fly solo without proper endorsement from a certificated flight instructor (CFI). Passenger carrying is prohibited.
  • Sport: Cannot carry more than one passenger, authorized to fly only light-sport aircraft and are limited to daytime flying only. If an individual elects to receive additional instruction, some of the limitations may be removed.
  • Recreational: May fly aircraft of up to 180 horsepower (130 kW) and 4 seats in the daytime for pleasure only.
  • Private: May fly for pleasure or personal business. Private pilots cannot be paid, compensated to fly, or hired by any operator.
  • Commercial: Can be paid, compensated to fly, or hired by operators and are required to have higher training standards than private or sport pilots.
Click to expand...

However you can be compensated a pro-rata share as a private pilot. So if you and the two people are flying from Chicago to Austin, you can split the costs: rental, fuel, oil, tiedown / other fees, equally. So if it costs $600 to fly from Chicago to Austin, and you are taking along two other people, you can split it 3 ways or $200 each. A private pilot may also fly aircraft for sales demonstrations once they log 100hrs, and may conduct paid charity flights.

Commercial isn't really that much higher (my old CFI could tell you that) in standards, other than the fact you are trained in a couple of extra maneuvers (chandelles, lazy 8's) than private. You are expected to have more "book" knowledge than and private pilot. Oh the tolerances aren't that much tighter, 50' variance instead of 100' variance for maneuver altitudes on average. I was doing maneuvers (steep turns, turns about a point, s turns, power on / power off stalls, et al) to commercial standards, in gusty winds, 4 weeks after I started my private pilot certificate. You can't just setup a business carrying passengers, like a charter or air carrier ops, just because you hold a commercial pilot certificate. Those operations are governed under other regs (Part 121 & 135 for starters) and require more than simply holding a commercial pilot certificate.

So if you're flying with a private pilot that holds an instrument rating, and the pilot flies on a regular basis, you're probably no worse off than if you're flying a charter flight with someone holding a commercial certificate.

It's a private pilot certificate (or a commercial / air transport pilot certificate) not a license.

Private/Commercial ASEL/AMEL with IFR
High Performance, Tailwheel, and High Altitude sign-offs

Former Mooney (why's the tail on backwards?) driver looking at buying a Cessna 421
 
this wouldve been awesome but the safety behind it is ehh, legality obviously wouldnt have worked out
 
total0wnage said:
this wouldve been awesome but the safety behind it is ehh, legality obviously wouldnt have worked out
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Well, if it was "sharing" I can see how they thought it would work. If people aren't paying like Uber, where the car owner is literally selling driving you anywhere you want to go for X money, legality should have been on their side. The FARs, in particular 61.113(c), allow private pilots to split costs with passengers. So if the totality of the flight (acceptable expenses per 61.113) came to US$600, the pilot and two others should be able to split it equally for US$200 a piece.

However this has been tried before, Airpooler, and it's really just the FAA talking out of both sides of their face yet again. This is not unusual for the FAA. After all, breaking the rules is bad and can get your certificate suspended or yanked. Then again, they (and the rules) say you (Pilot in Command) are allowed to break any rule to complete a flight safely. In reality they are scared silly about this turning into an Uber where people just inflate costs and get paid, while doing an end run around Parts 121 & 135.

Your comment about safety is off, really. As long a a pilot has their private pilot certificate, and their Instrument Rating, they're 95% of the way to being as good as the average person holding a commercial pilot certificate. At that point, it really comes down to two things for safety:

1) Do they fly on a regular basis? The more you fly planes, the better you get at flying planes.

and

2) How well they know the plane they are flying? Flying a new (to you) plane is like hopping into a completely different make and model rental car sometimes. Stuff isn't where you think it should be, and this causes you to slow down which isn't good in an emergency.

#1 is easy enough to monitor by a willing pilot - partner up with Open Airplane and you get the bonus of their Universal Pilot Checkout (UPC) which has sections for VFR, IFR, and Mountain flying. That and you can see (since Open Airplane does all the billing) how many hours they've flown in the last 90 days.

#2 is really easy, just require a UPC in type (already necessary) and 15 hours time in type - unless it's a twin then I'd say 20 hours time in type. That extra 5 hours does make a difference.

So really, it should have been legal. I understand what they are afraid of, but still, it offers a bit of cost sharing to fly from A to B.
 
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