1st rental maintenance issue, what say you?

I can certainly understand why some of you might default to not paying a dime to return an airplane that broke down on you on a trip. But, please, take a step back and take a look at this from the perspective of a rental operator.

In my case, we have three Cessna 172s that are M & N models. I rent them for $120/hr (plus sales tax) with fuel included.

If you take a hard look at the "math" behind this business you'll see that we take in a lot of money and we hand out a lot of money, and none of the owners have ever collected a profit in the 18 months we've been operating. We have a relatively thin profit margin with the high risk of major expenses that could occur without warning.

I don't put basically any restriction on my rental pilots. They don't even have to talk to me to use the airplanes. They could book an airplane at 2am, drive to the airport, and blast off to California and I would have no problems with that.

We also must remember that it's absolutely impossible for me to make a Cessna 172 not break down, regardless of what year it is. It's a somewhat complex machine with lots of parts that will break. Most of these parts don't have redundancy - which means there are a WHOLE LOT of parts that could break and leave an airplane stranded. My rental aircraft fly a LOT and they're more reliable then the vast majority of privately owned 172 aircraft in my opinion. It's completely unrealistic for someone to view a "break down" as my fault in most cases. They'd have the same break-downs except it'd cost them a hell of a lot more money if they privately owned.

If someone had a break down 100 miles from home base, I'd just fly out there and bring them home and wouldn't likely try to charge them a thing. However if it happens a thousand miles away...well..they're going to have to pay per the agreement they signed. If they won't, I probably would have no choice but to pursue legal action.

The profit margins are thin, I give my pilots tons of freedom, I've never charged anyone a daily minimum fee. So what am I to do as a business owner when I start thinking about this issue? If, even once a year, someone flew one of my aircraft to California, had a starter fail, then just left it there and I had to recover AND eat the recovery costs....well..that would completely WHIPE OUT the ENTIRE PROFIT MARGIN for that airplane for the entire next year! If it happened to all three airplanes, well, we'd lose money that year and we'd have to put more money into the business out of our own pockets to make up for the irresponsible renter that rented equipment fully knowing they had an obligation to bring it back. If that happened a couple times, we'd just have to shut the entire business down, and leave a bunch of student pilots hanging mid-training.

We're not Enterprise. I don't have infrastructure all over the country. I view my rental pilots as friends that I let borrow our airplanes and I charge them just enough that we don't lose money.

So if those of you that say you shouldn't have to pay anything to return an airplane to home base (THAT YOU FLEW ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO BEGIN WITH) you might want to think hard what that could do to your rental prices. How much more do you want to pay per hour to have this right to abandon equipment? Or would you rather me just not allow people to fly our aircraft more than 100 miles from home base?

Honestly, the part of this that makes no sense to me, if you flew it across the country you were already planning on paying to fly the thing back home. So to have to pay to fly it back home after it gets repaired shouldn't be a shocker.
 
jesse said:
I can certainly understand why some of you might default to not paying a dime to return an airplane that broke down on you on a trip. But, please, take a step back and take a look at this from the perspective of a rental operator.

If you take a hard look at the "math" behind this business you'll see that we take in a lot of money and we hand out a lot of money, and none of the owners have ever collected a profit in the 18 months we've been operating. We have a relatively thin profit margin with the high risk of major expenses that could occur without warning.

We're not Enterprise. I don't have infrastructure all over the country. I view my rental pilots as friends that I let borrow our airplanes and I charge them just enough that we don't lose money.

So if those of you that say you shouldn't have to pay anything to return an airplane to home base (THAT YOU FLEW ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO BEGIN WITH) you might want to think hard what that could do to your rental prices. How much more do you want to pay per hour to have this right to abandon equipment? Or would you rather me just not allow people to fly our aircraft more then 100 miles from home base?

Honestly, the part of this that makes no sense to me, if you flew it across the country you were already planning on paying to fly the thing back home. So to have to pay to fly it back home after it gets repaired shouldn't be a shocker.
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meh, I only partially agree. first of all, I didn't fly it across the country, it was a day trip to pick up a PnP dog <200miles away. second, I actually said to the guy that if me paying the return fee is the decision that is made, I'll do it strictly to keep the relationship in tact, but I don't agree with it. third, you're a business that rents airplanes. this is a risk you take. there are risks you take as owners, and risks you take as rental places. we are such a small community that, like I said, I don't want to burn bridges but basically you're saying you're not willing to take that risk and that the customer should pay for faulty equipment.

I equate this to going to a nice dinner, you order a steak, side, and salad. the grill breaks down. the waitress, let's just assume she's a smoking hot little asian waitress for the sake of this story, brings you your salad and side and the check for the full meal. you question where the steak is and why you're being charged for the full meal. the waitress says "well, you came here intending to eat steak and if our grill didn't break down you would have eaten the steak, therefore we're charging you for it". same slim profit margin. also not acceptable.
 
eman1200 said:
meh, I only partially agree. first of all, I didn't fly it across the country, it was a day trip to pick up a PnP dog <200miles away. second, I actually said to the guy that if me paying the return fee is the decision that is made, I'll do it strictly to keep the relationship in tact, but I don't agree with it. third, you're a business that rents airplanes. this is a risk you take. there are risks you take as owners, and risks you take as rental places. we are such a small community that, like I said, I don't want to burn bridges but basically you're saying you're not willing to take that risk and that the customer should pay for faulty equipment.

I equate this to going to a nice dinner, you order a steak, side, and salad. the grill breaks down. the waitress, let's just assume she's a smoking hot little asian waitress for the sake of this story, brings you your salad and side and the check for the full meal. you question where the steak is and why you're being charged for the full meal. the waitress says "well, you came here intending to eat steak and if our grill didn't break down you would have eaten the steak, therefore we're charging you for it". same slim profit margin. also not acceptable.
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He has a point.

These things suck for all parties, but sometimes it's the cost of doing business.
 
eman1200 said:
meh, I only partially agree. first of all, I didn't fly it across the country, it was a day trip to pick up a PnP dog <200miles away. second, I actually said to the guy that if me paying the return fee is the decision that is made, I'll do it strictly to keep the relationship in tact, but I don't agree with it. third, you're a business that rents airplanes. this is a risk you take. there are risks you take as owners, and risks you take as rental places. we are such a small community that, like I said, I don't want to burn bridges but basically you're saying you're not willing to take that risk and that the customer should pay for faulty equipment.

I equate this to going to a nice dinner, you order a steak, side, and salad. the grill breaks down. the waitress, let's just assume she's a smoking hot little asian waitress for the sake of this story, brings you your salad and side and the check for the full meal. you question where the steak is and why you're being charged for the full meal. the waitress says "well, you came here intending to eat steak and if our grill didn't break down you would have eaten the steak, therefore we're charging you for it". same slim profit margin. also not acceptable.
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If it's fixed within a reasonable time there's no reason not to pay for the return trip. Maybe a slight discount for the inconvenience. If it's going to be 2+ days that I wasn't going to be there I shouldn't have to pay for it. I think its dependent on the circumstances.
 
Catalo said:
If it's fixed within a reasonable time there's no reason not to pay for the return trip. Maybe a slight discount for the inconvenience. If it's going to be 2+ days that I wasn't going to be there I shouldn't have to pay for it. I think its dependent on the circumstances.
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if -> I <- make the return trip in the plane, I'm paying full price, only thing I might ask is if I had to grab a hotel room, would they help with that and they actually offered that right away. if it looks like there's no option for ME getting the plane back, and like I mentioned is really only a short hop away, I don't see why I should pay.

keep in mind too, the point of this thread wasn't for me to argue or complain about what's happening to me, it's more just a question to see how other folks handle this situation. I still don't know what I'm paying or not paying.
 
Jesse, relationships matter. I am a renter now and I consider the people at the FBO my friends too. I really don't know how many people rent to fly 1000nm, my guess is not too many. Most renters rent because they cant quite afford their own plane. If I broke down on one of my usual flights <100nm, I would do anything in my power to get the plane back. But, if its days later and I have to work, and I had to pay to get home I am just not going to be real excited about paying the ferry pilot to go get the plane, If I wanted that expense and could afford it, I wouldn't be renting your plane in the first place. And honestly, maybe you do need to increase your rental fee. If mine went up 10-15 dollars an hour it wouldn't change my habits one bit. Of course, this stuff doesn't happen a lot, and that's a good thing.
 
The FBO where I learned rented out two airplanes and they took them to Alaska and back. I wonder what they would have done if one of them had broken down and needed repair? Probably told them to get it repaired up there and the they would pay the bill.

My airplane had a problem and I had to leave it for two weeks to get the prop fixed (It had a malfunction, not an accident). I hired a driver to drive me and my passenger back home. The FBO at my home base found a private pilot willing to fly me back to pick it up for free. He was happy, he needed the cross country time and would have been flying somewhere else if not helping me.

I would think this sort of thing would be addressed in the rental agreement although if people want to dispute about it Im sure they could. Its an expensive situation all the way around.
 
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In my case, the owner wanted me to pay for the extra maintenance flights, the time it took to fly back and forth with diversions, and I had to swallow my costs to rent a car for a few days etc. And he wanted me to pay by the hobbs when I flew it back for him when I had lost all utility in the plane.
No compensation for the 12+ hours I spent trying to troubleshoot it for him (including driving from Houston to Angelina County 3 times back and forth on my own dime)
 
Found out today they are only charging me for the flight out. Seems very fair and reasonable. Makes me want to rent from them more often. Props to those guys. Yeah, I said 'props'....
 
Yeah, I'd say you got a really fair deal, Eman. I think, personally, my acceptance of the costs would vary with each situation. If they would be able to fix it same-day or with an overnight stay and are going to comp my hotel room, I'm fine with covering the cost of the flight back as I'd be flying it. However, if this was a long trip and it fails causing me to rent a car to get to the final destination and/or several nights of hotel stay, the return trip better be compensated. I rented an aircraft to get me to/from a destination, if it fails due to no fault of mine, I am going to have little patience for a rental outfit that tries to make me cover room/board/rental car and any absence from work/vacation as well as the Hobbs to get it back home.
 
mtuomi said:
I had my Arrow fiasco last year, when I had to make 2 emergency landings within a few hours. First a magneto fell off(oil all over windscreen etc), then the prop governor broke (I got about 18" and 2700rpm, barely could keep altitude at 80ish mphIAS).
I had to sort out everything myself for the magneto issue (took maybe 4-5 hours), and had to rent a car and drive back and forth around 100mi one way to do their troubleshooting for the prop, then stay 2 nights while they fixed it. I flew the plane back but only because he asked if I could do it, we had to skip 2 places we had planned on going to etc because of this issue.
In the end he tried to charge me for every single hour on the Hobbs (there was probably 2-3 hours extra for all the troubleshooting and diversions etc). I told him he can stick his Hobbs numbers somewhere where the sun doesn't shine.

I think total on Hobbs was 18 hours for that trip. I said I'll be happy to pay 10 which was pretty much the utility I got out of it during that trip (and given that it was 10 hours Hobbs, I don't think he would've been out of pocket anyway). He started yelling and threatening me, so I just said "sue me" and hung up.
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Reading between the lines I think I see why that airplane was falling apart.
 
One place I rent has this policy. If it breaks down they will pay to get you back home if you can't wait for repairs to be done. You are still responsible to get the plane and return it when repairs are done. If you don't/can't, you pay the costs to have it done. Seems a good compromise to me. However, If I found out the breakdown was clearly due to the owner doing shoddy maintenance, it might turn into a fight.
 
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