91.11
Prohibition on interference with crewmembers.
No person may assault, threaten, intimidate, or interfere with a crewmember in the performance of the crewmember's duties aboard an aircraft being operated.
After arriving on the leased property of the FBO, on their ramp, and shutting down an engine, one would be hard pressed to show that the FBO assaulted, threatened, or intimidated a crew member by parking a fuel truck in front of the aircraft.
Remember that it's their lease. You choose to park there. They can choose where to park their truck.
As far as interference, you'll be hard pressed to make the case of interfering with a crew member. If your assertion is that the FBO interfered by preventing the crew member from doing what he or she wanted, remember that it's not legal do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it. Try crossing the hold bars to an active runway when the stop bars are illuminated. Try taxiing without permission down the active runway. Try crossing into the Secure Identification Display area at the airport, without an ID. Then try cruising through all the private hangar leases at the airport, simply because you are a crew member and feel you have the right to go where ever you please and do as you like.
Won't work.
As someone noted, the FBO technically could impose a lien, and can take steps to prevent your leaving. They could put a wheel block or prop lock on your aircraft. They have the option of charging ramp fee or waiving it for your fuel purchase.
I don't like that position with FBO's. I am not obligated to buy merchandise or pay a fee for walking in the door at most retail stores: they pay a lease and I can walk in or out of their door as I like, without buying their products; the same should hold true at the local FBO. A FBO which makes a practice of raping the customer for no good reason, on the pretext that they're paying the least, is a bad business ethic and not a place I care to frequent. Consequently, I don't like going to Signature. They're overpriced, have poor customer service, and treat their clients like garbage.
I know a flight engineer who used an onboard sat phone several times to report interference with a crew member. On each occasion, the aircraft was surrounded by law enforcement upon landing. On each occasion the "interference" was the flight engineer being told to watch himself, being told something he didn't want to hear. His response was to pull the interference card. Talk about overreaction.
True, but I bet a local reporter would love to run with a story like that. Nothing talks louder to a company than bad press.
That would be fine if it was a decision of my employer at the time. What would my employer have gained? The employer's ONLY interest was to see that the organ reached the recipient at the airport, period. That done, the employers focus turned to the next flight, and the one after that. Dwelling on who-done-us-wrong was a luxury for people who didn't have emergency operations to attend, and a busy dinner plate. It certainly wasn't my place to call the press and wage war against a large national chain of FBO's over one incident, acting outside my own chain of command. That wouldn't have been appropriate at all.
It's a little like spraying a field. When starting into the field, the most important thing in the world are the power lines; if one doesn't get past them, nothing else matters. So, they become the focus. The world revolves around those power lines, The moment they pass under the wing, they're let go, forgotten, and the ground becomes paramount. Nothing matters more than the ground. It's a big deal. Level, flying down the field, the standpipe half-way down is critical. Fail to get the wing over that standpipe, and no more wife, no more kids, no more taxes. Once past the standpipe, one is fascinated by the power lines at the other end of the field, again. Each object is crucial, life-altering, the most important thing in the world, until it's handled. It's not forgotten: one needs to remember those things when one comes back again, but they're out of sight and out of mind until that time.
Going to signature is the same way. They're on the bottom of my list for FBO's, and they did the wrong thing more than once. I often haven't had the final word in where the flight begins or terminates; that's an employer decision and a client decision. When I do have the choice, I don't use signature. Their decision to park a fuel truck in front of me was a ****-poor choice, and wreaked of unprofessionalism. None the less, once the truck was gone, my focus was getting the client, the organ, to the proper hands. Once that was done, my focus was on getting the aircraft back to it's home base to be ready for the next patient, period. We handle, and we move on. Aviation is like that. If we take time to cry over spilt milk or haunt those who offended us, we waste time that we really need to spend doing something else.
BTW, I have never paid a fee at a Signature or any other jet center FBO and manage to even negotiate fuel price to within a quarter or so of the best regional rate, even got hangared over night at one and nitrogen for a strut (I put it in) for free. For all I've heard, I can't complain about em....
