Flying club scheduling

Flyingfanatic

Flyingfanatic

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Flying Fanatic
For those of you in a club, what rules do you have for aircraft scheduling?

We are creating a club and trying to balance providing availability and also having some structure to prevent abuse.

We copied another club rules, but they seem too restrictive.

Another thought was charging one hour per day on extended trips. This is an equity club, so I'm not sure that is fair, but it would potentially prevent someone from flying it an hour away for a weeks vacation.

Anyone have some examples they can share?
 
Here's ours:

SCHEDULING RULES
1. Scheduling an aircraft constitutes an agreement to operate that aircraft as pilot in command in
compliance with all applicable rules and restrictions

2. Scheduling is mandatory: All flights must be scheduled at AircraftClubs.com.

3. Accuracy is required: Scheduled periods must accurately reflect planned usage.

4. Comments are required: Add clear comments that describe planned use and contingency plans.

5. Fly or Cancel: All scheduled flights must be flown or canceled.

6. Timely revisions: Revise schedules promptly when plans change for any reason, including
cancellations, change of departure or return date or time, a shortened trip schedule, weather or maintenance
delays, etc. When a change affects another member, make every effort to coordinate personally or through a
third party.

7. Schedule Adherence: Return aircraft to Metro on schedule. Members shall be responsible for all
expenses related to delayed returns or retrieval of the aircraft.

8. Scheduling Restrictions: members may NOT schedule:
A. long periods for short flights.
B. more than one aircraft for any given time period.
C. more than two multi-day flights, or four flights (total) in one aircraft. An officer may modify this restriction
to accommodate training or checkride schedules, but existing schedules cannot be disturbed.
D. a block of days for the purpose of flying local flights or several single day trips from BJC or another area
airport. Each flight must be scheduled as a separate event and must start and end at BJC.
E. trips longer than fourteen days unless specific authorization is granted by the Board of Directors.
F. more than one extended trip per aircraft per calendar year. (An extended trip covers 7 or more days)
Exception: This restriction does not apply if an aircraft is available for such a trip within five days of a desired departure date.

9. Priority Scheduling: Each member may protect two schedules each calendar year with a "priority"
reservation. These reservations:
A. must be designated when scheduled by inserting a clear declaration in the schedule comments box
and notifying the membership via the scheduling system e-mail program.
B. cannot exceed a yearly total of 18 days.
C. are always considered "used when scheduled" but if the aircraft is not available at departure time, the
privilege may be used again in that year.
D. can displace other schedules except for: FAA checkrides, maintenance schedules, or any member’s
booking that begins within fourteen days of a desired priority reservation date.
 
Max of two outstanding reservations, and that's about it.
 
What are your club goals? Just like the mission for buying a plane, what is your club trying to accomplish? Some aim for cheaper flying for those that want to go bore holes in the sky for an hour or so every now-and-again, others aim more for traveling, most a mix. How many people in the club? How many planes?

I've seen "clubs" (more like flight schools with rentals) that have 3 hr/day minimum. At a wet rate that discourages trips for several days and short flights for a weekend; not fun to realize you are paying for fuel you aren't burning. I was in another that had dry rates (i.e. not including fuel) and 2 hours/day minimum. That made trips more manageable from a cost perspective.

The other is a number of reservations on the calendar at a time. That's to stop someone from reserving a one hour flight every Saturday, which effectively stops anyone else from doing a weekend trip in that plane. Now, if they are doing it in a 152 that's better than in "traveling" plane; i.e. one with more speed and useful load.

In the partnerships I've been in (two non-equity and one equity) we've had an open schedule. Those had 3 to 4 partners. We had a rule that one had to get approval from the other for a trip over a week. I don't remember anyone going over a week, but if they did it was just over, may 8 or 9 days. One of the non-equity partnerships I was in for 4.5 years, with a Cirrus SR22, we only had a couple of occasions when two people wanted to go somewhere at the same time. Otherwise the conflicts were when someone thought about doing a little flying on a nice day only to see someone else had the plane on a trip. We all worked, so mostly weekend trips, and occasional longer trips. None of those had minimum hours/day.
 
Maximum of three reservations, and any trips over 4 days need approval by the board. I haven't had any problem getting approval so far - we don't have daily minimums, so I think this is just to make sure guys aren't making huge trips and not putting any time on the airplane. This is for a two airframe club.
 
Here's what the club I was in went with. 2 planes, 14 members.

These Scheduling Guidelines apply to all aircraft, not just reservations in one aircraft but any combination of reservations across all club aircraft.

1. No consecutive weekends (that is Saturday of one week through Sunday of the following week) without approval of a majority of the members in good standing. This applies to advance scheduling of the airplanes; if you wake up on a Saturday or Sunday, feel like flying, and a plane is available (not already reserved by somebody else), then you may reserve and take it on that day, notwithstanding the fact that you reserved a plane the prior or following weekend.

2. No more then two extended (7 days or more) scheduled periods per calendar year without prior approval of a majority of the members in good standing. No period longer then ten (10) days without prior approval of the Board of Directors or a majority of the members in good standing.

3. For any scheduled period of 4 days or more a period of equal time both before and after the scheduled period should be avoided, except as needed for currency or time available on the day of the flight.

4. No member shall have more then six (6) reservations on the schedule at any one time.

5. Reservations cannot be made more then one year in advance without prior approval of the Board of Directors or a majority of the members in good standing.

6. Members should place a notation the Aircraft Scheduling System listing your destination on cross-country flights.
 
wayne said:
What are your club goals? Just like the mission for buying a plane, what is your club trying to accomplish? Some aim for cheaper flying for those that want to go bore holes in the sky for an hour or so every now-and-again, others aim more for traveling, most a mix. How many people in the club? How many planes?

I've seen "clubs" (more like flight schools with rentals) that have 3 hr/day minimum. At a wet rate that discourages trips for several days and short flights for a weekend; not fun to realize you are paying for fuel you aren't burning. I was in another that had dry rates (i.e. not including fuel) and 2 hours/day minimum. That made trips more manageable from a cost perspective.

The other is a number of reservations on the calendar at a time. That's to stop someone from reserving a one hour flight every Saturday, which effectively stops anyone else from doing a weekend trip in that plane. Now, if they are doing it in a 152 that's better than in "traveling" plane; i.e. one with more speed and useful load.

In the partnerships I've been in (two non-equity and one equity) we've had an open schedule. Those had 3 to 4 partners. We had a rule that one had to get approval from the other for a trip over a week. I don't remember anyone going over a week, but if they did it was just over, may 8 or 9 days. One of the non-equity partnerships I was in for 4.5 years, with a Cirrus SR22, we only had a couple of occasions when two people wanted to go somewhere at the same time. Otherwise the conflicts were when someone thought about doing a little flying on a nice day only to see someone else had the plane on a trip. We all worked, so mostly weekend trips, and occasional longer trips. None of those had minimum hours/day.
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It will be 10-12 members in an Archer. Hope to expand to a second aircraft and increase members in the future.

The mission is to provide some social element and flying a good airplane and a very reasonable cost. Whether it's for training, trips, or the $100 hamburger is up to each member.

I've been in a club with 2 airplanes and 18 members and the schedule was typically wide-open with no conflicts. Their rules seem somewhat restrictive though and confusing.

I've been told by a very experienced flight school owner that 13 members per plane works out about right.

Thanks for the input!
 
4 reservations max
1 overnight reservation per quarter, 1 hour daily minimum.

If there is no reservation, you can just make one instantly and go fly.

This works for ~200 people and 12 airplanes.
 
Our official rules are at least one hour per week day, two per weekend day. Permission of board member if you take more than 4 days in a row.

That said, it's really not enforced. Our biggest problem is students reserving the plane for multiple days and then cancelling the poor weather days, or all day and picking the best hour. Generally a cautionary email from the board has solved it. Technically if you don't show up within a half hour, your reservation is void and someone else can take the plane. Aircraft clubs lists phone numbers, so we occasionally text each other and coordinate.

Personally, I would very much like to see a limit to the number of reservations allowed at one time, as we have a couple students reserving 3 days a week 2-3 months out, although they do fly if the weather is fit. Makes it impossible to schedule a multi day trip, though.

It's going to depend on the type of members you have. Lots of students vs distance travelers vs fair weather buzz around types.

We have 52 members with 5 planes, and availability is very good. Our bylaws are posted on the website www.Crosswindsflying.com if want to look at how we're structured.
 
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There is a good scheduling/billing software called GreenFolders that tracks the actual use vs the scheduled use time. So that catches the data on people who schedule 6 hours and have the plane actually checked out for 2. That's the actual dispatch time, not the actual flight time. So if you book for 4 hours, fly to burger, and come back in 3.5 hours with only 2 hours on the meter, that's okay. But of you book 6 and have 2 dispatch hours that sucks because someone could have flown in those other 4 hours.
 
www.morrisaero.org doesn't have daily minimums. We only allow members to have two reservations on the scheduling site at once, but within that constraint, you can schedule an unlimited number of blocks of up to 4 hours. If the plane is free on a day you want to fly, you can make a same-day reservation that doesn't count against your two reservation limit.

We're re-working our policy for longer reservations. When we had two aircraft, you could make a full-day reservation twice a month, I think, a two-day reservation once a month, 3-4 day reservations every other month, you could reserve a full week once a year, and a two-week block every other year. Those limits worked well for us, as for the decade since I joined no one booked a week or longer reservation, and even the three or four day reservations were pretty rare. The retirees in the club tended to book mid-week, leaving more weekend hours free for the rest of us. Other clubs may need to adjust based on their membership's flying needs.

We now have a single plane, so we're re-thinking our policy for longer-term reservations. Until we get the by-laws changed, they are considered on a case-by-case basis by the board.
 
Ravioli said:
There is a good scheduling/billing software called GreenFolders that tracks the actual use vs the scheduled use time. So that catches the data on people who schedule 6 hours and have the plane actually checked out for 2. That's the actual dispatch time, not the actual flight time. So if you book for 4 hours, fly to burger, and come back in 3.5 hours with only 2 hours on the meter, that's okay. But of you book 6 and have 2 dispatch hours that sucks because someone could have flown in those other 4 hours.
Click to expand...

I believe aircraft clubs can do this as well, as well as oil & fuel tracking and some other features, but we don't use them. We made a push to try and eliminate paper logs by getting people to put the hours into the website, and we managed to get about 25% participation. Old guys don't like change especially when it involves computers. Im surprised the online reservation system works as well as it does.
 
@Jim K - I agree that old guys won't do it right. But... Air Craft Clubs software is a **** show. But, $14 per plane is hard to pass up when nobody uses it properly.

<-- that guy put a chromebox and wifi into our hangar so people could "do it right" and it went to not.

<-- And that guy can say with certainty that every old guy who couldn't do it correctly knew the email machine well enough to complain about their invoices each month. So much for lack of computer skillz, eh?
 
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