FlyteNow Sues FAA (Uber for pilots)

Everskyward said:
But if I offer to pay you for the ingredients, or better yet, bring an expensive bottle of wine, the heath people wouldn't care at all.
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Actually, if I made the offer to general public on the internet to provide meals in return for items of value or cash, I do believe they would care.
 
Ron Levy said:
Actually, if I made the offer to general public on the internet to provide meals in return for items of value or cash, I do believe they would care.
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What if you made the offer here on POA?
 
I think pilots have been using Internet forums to find shared rides, but it will be found to be not permissible. Anyone from the public can join POA. So soon will will have the current case as precedent that will dictate that any pilot who posts here like that will be subject to a certificate action.
 
Hey buds can I get a ride? I'll give you a dollar.
 
Ron Levy said:
Actually, if I made the offer to general public on the internet to provide meals in return for items of value or cash, I do believe they would care.
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You mean like these folks?

It's so sad that so many people in this country can't sleep at night because somewhere someone is doing something that the government must supress FOR THE CHILDREN!!!!!
 
Everskyward said:
If we go out to dinner and split the bill is one person compensating the other? Or are you just sharing the cost of the dinner?
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Can't answer that question without knowing if there was an exchange of value at the dinner. In the shared flight situation, pilot gives passenger transportation and passenger pays part of the cost. What did I give you at the dinner? Maybe it was my restaurant? I gave you a meal and you gave me money; definitely compensation.

Otherwise, even if I paid the whole bill, it would be nothing more than a gift unless I was getting something in return*.

Compensation is not simply handing over money. It's sharing money in exchange for something.

(*silly FAA notions of business goodwill as compensation being a separate question)

And BTW Mari - if you get out here, standing invitation to dinner. My treat. :)

.
 
The FAA allows ride sharing without any compensation but forbid flight sharing when compensation is present.
That means we are not talking about safety here, we are talking "money" and the FAA is acting as a lobby for the commercial operators who are scared that general aviation might take a few paying seats from them, the same reason Taxis are opposed to Uber.
 
JeffDG said:
Concur.



I think the fact that the FAA routinely makes rules by interpretation, rather than following the Administrative Procedures Act notice-and-comment rulemaking process is an issue worthy of a well-briefed and argued court case.
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Perhaps that's the real reason the Goldwater group is involved.
 
Christian cg said:
The FAA allows ride sharing without any compensation but forbid flight sharing when compensation is present.
That means we are not talking about safety here, we are talking "money" and the FAA is acting as a lobby for the commercial operators who are scared that general aviation might take a few paying seats from them, the same reason Taxis are opposed to Uber.
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Not really...the FAA says you have to be certificated at the Commercial Pilot level or higher in order to be compensated for flying (with certain exceptions, including cost-sharing). They see the need for a higher level of training/testing before they will allow the uneducated public to pay for your services as a pilot. That is the "compensation" issue.

"Holding out" is a separate issue, and in order to hold out, you need to hold an operating certificate under Part 119. That's the issue with posting availability on a web site, and the "club" aspect of what FlyteNow is trying to do.
 
Yes Really
The FAA mandate is flight safety, please explain what difference does it make as far as safety is concerned if passengers compensate the pilot or not!
On one hand, the FFA deems a free flight safe and on the other a paid flight forbidden in general aviation ???
If I understand correctly, as far as the FAA is concerned I am safe to fly for free but not if I pay???
Sorry; but "me" dont understand that theory on safety.
 
Christian cg said:
Yes Really
The FAA mandate is flight safety, please explain what difference does it make as far as safety is concerned if passengers compensate the pilot or not!
On one hand, the FFA deems a free flight safe and on the other a paid flight forbidden in general aviation ???
If I understand correctly, as far as the FAA is concerned I am safe to fly for free but not if I pay???
Sorry; but "me" dont understand that theory on safety.
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The fact that you don't understand does not make it wrong. ;)

The FAA is actually quite consistent about how they view pilot training and safety. When learning to fly, we cannot fly solo until a CFI is willing to sign us off. That won't happen until the CFI verifies that we meet certain standards that the FAA has determined.

Once we can fly solo, we are not allowed to take passengers. Why? Because even though a CFI has judged us safe to fly solo, the FAA does not believe that represents sufficiently evolved training to place others at risk.

Once we've passed a private pilot checkride, the FAA allows us to carry passengers. Why? Because our training, as measured by the FAA-designed tests, is designed to equip us with the skills necessary to complete flights safely. It's an educated guess on the part of the FAA but they believe that a private pilot, who has been trained properly and who can pass the three tests, possesses the skills to fly safely enough that they are willing to risk letting other people fly with us.

But, not for hire. In theory, that prevents us from taking passengers who are strangers to us. Our friends, family, relatives, colleagues -- the people who are most likely to be our passengers -- in theory know us well enough to be able to make educated judgments about us and our judgment and thereby make at least some kind of informed decision about whether they want to fly with us.

If we want to fly for hire, the FAA wants us to have skills that are greater than those measured by the private pilot tests. Thus the commercial rating. Once we have that, we can fly for compensation but our ability to fly passengers for hire is constrained. Why? Because the FAA wants people who working for airline-type operations to demonstrate even greater skill and knowledge. Thus the ATP.

And that's not even enough. If you want to go out and start an airline, you can absolutely do so -- providing you are willing to adhere to the operating standards that the FAA has devised and believes will lead to the safe operations of your new POA airline. Given the incredible safety record of the airlines, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that the FAA knows a little bit about what they're talking about in this area.

FlyteNow would upend this view of the world and let private pilots easily connect with people they don't know at all and take them for flights and be compensated for that. Don't agree it's compensation? Suppose you are going from NJ to FL. Absent passengers, you have to pay the whole bill yourself. You find two or three people to ride along and you get to make your trip, have the fun of flying, log the time, gain the experience, the whole deal -- for about a quarter of the price you would have paid. Sure sounds like compensation for letting those people come along to me and it sure does to the FAA, too.

If it were your three brothers, the FAA will let you do it because there's no holding out, no advertising, no inviting members of the public to go along, none of that. It's you and your three brothers splitting the cost of making a trip together. But throw FlyteNow into the mix and people who don't know you at all will be bidding on traveling with you for cut-rate airline trips. They likely won't know anything about GA flying, since most people don't, and they won't know you from Adam. They'll have no way to make an informed judgment about whether or not to get onboard that airplane or not. And that, the FAA has decided, does not meet the standards of safety that they require for carrying members of the public.
 
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Christian cg said:
If I understand correctly, as far as the FAA is concerned I am safe to fly for free but not if I pay???
Sorry; but "me" dont understand that theory on safety.
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You don't (won't?) understand correctly. There are different levels of safety: What you are allowed to apply to your personal sphere and what you must apply in order to charge those in the public sphere. The fatal accident rate per mile is on the order of 50 times worse, IIRC, for GA travel than via airlines. Safety isn't monolithic.

dtuuri
 
Which all comes down to the retarded notion that it is legal and safe to split costs as long as it isn't with people you met on the internet.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Which all comes down to the retarded notion that it is legal and safe to split costs as long as it isn't with people you met on the internet.
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Where did you read that? If you've shown a willingness to carry anybody, it won't matter how you've shown that--internet or otherwise.

dtuuri
 
ClimbnSink said:
Which all comes down to the retarded notion that it is legal and safe to split costs as long as it isn't with people you met on the internet.
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Nobody, including the FAA, equates legal with safe. Nobody has said it's inherently unsafe for a private pilot (or for that matter, an ATP exercising privileges at the private pilot level) to hold out and receive compensation for a flight. It is, however, illegal. What FlyteNow is asking the courts to do is simply define "holding out" such that their operation does not fall under that definition, as the current FAA interpretations do, so that pilots can receive compensation under the shared expenses rule (and, of course, FlyteNow can get their cut without being a 119-certificated operator).
 
ClimbnSink said:
Which all comes down to the retarded notion that it is legal and safe to split costs as long as it isn't with people you met on the internet.
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No. It's deemed legal (and hopefully safe) to fly with people who presumably know you personally. No one else is likely to fly with you absent some kind of advertising or holding out -- which are deemed illegal.

The whole Internet thing is a red herring and I suspect most of you folks know that. It could just as well be a telephone number that someone calls and an operator answers and says "Oh, you want to go from NJ to FL? John in NJ is flying there tomorrow. Want his contact info?"

Same illegal operation.
 
Well if it is safe change the law to make it legal.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Well if it is safe change the law to make it legal.
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And how do we judge if a flight operation is likely to be safe?

I've got an idea! Why don't we devise regulations and procedures for certifying the pilots who would be flying the plane and the operators who would be providing the planes, maintaining the planes, and developing procedures for safe operations of the flights? :)

Oh, right, we already did that. :yes:
 
Christian cg said:
Yes Really
The FAA mandate is flight safety, please explain what difference does it make as far as safety is concerned if passengers compensate the pilot or not!
On one hand, the FFA deems a free flight safe and on the other a paid flight forbidden in general aviation ???
If I understand correctly, as far as the FAA is concerned I am safe to fly for free but not if I pay???
Sorry; but "me" dont understand that theory on safety.
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Because that is how Common Law works. When you pay money, you complete a contract. In the aviation world you have created an air carriage contract. This has significant implications in the liability assumed. You now operate under Strict Lability; you are liable for everything, period, end of subject, limits barely apply. It's the FAA's job to make sure you can meet that commitment.
 
qbynewbie said:
And how do we judge if a flight operation is likely to be safe?

I've got an idea! Why don't we devise regulations and procedures for certifying the pilots who would be flying the plane and the operators who would be providing the planes, maintaining the planes, and developing procedures for safe operations of the flights? :)

Oh, right, we already did that. :yes:
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40 hours and a check ride passed, safe enough to share costs with mom and some stranger from the internet.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Well if it is safe change the law to make it legal.
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There's more than just "safe" and "unsafe." Safety is not a binary concept; there are different degrees of safety. Our legislators and bureacrats have deemed that it's appropriate to require a higher level of safety from those who hold out to the public. If you don't like that concept, you're free to lobby for it to be changed, but personally, I'm glad that I don't have to adhere to the level of requirements that airlines and air taxi operators are subject to.
 
We are not operating airliners and never will be. It is either safe to fly with mom and unrelated people or it isn't. The idea that some relationship or money sharing threshold changes bugsmasher flying from safe to blackdeath is silly.
 
ClimbnSink said:
40 hours and a check ride passed, safe enough to share costs with mom and some stranger from the internet.
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ClimbnSink said:
We are not operating airliners and never will be. It is either safe to fly with mom and unrelated people or it isn't. The idea that some relationship or money sharing threshold changes bugsmasher flying from safe to blackdeath is silly.
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You are welcome to that opinion but I suspect you won't have much luck getting either the FAA or Congress to share it.
 
qbynewbie said:
You are welcome to that opinion but I suspect you won't have much luck getting either the FAA or Congress to share it.
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Yes of course congress and the faa are the pinnacle of logic and common sense.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Yes of course congress and the faa are the pinnacle of logic and common sense.
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I suspect opinions will diverge on that but there's little getting around that they are the source of the laws and regulations governing flying in the US.
 
ClimbnSink said:
We are not operating airliners and never will be.
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The issue with FlyteNow is whether their operations stray into air taxi territory.

I for one, am glad that the different levels of safety concept exists, because I would hate to have to adhere to the requirements that air taxi operators are subject to.

It is either safe to fly with mom and unrelated people or it isn't.
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Baloney. There's no such thing as "safe." There are only different degrees of safety.

The idea that some relationship or money sharing threshold changes bugsmasher flying from safe to blackdeath is silly.
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The idea that there are only two choices, "safe," and "blackdeath," is silly.
 
Hey, when y'all are done on the Merry-go-round let me know. I want to ride next.
 
One real world example of free flight with a buddy, vs the same exact flight that's compensated is the go/no go decision. If you are looking at bad weather, and you don't have money involved, the no go decision is pretty easy. Add the element of compensation(even pro-rata share) and there's a greater impetus to make the flight.

Then, we get Patsy Cline and the day the music died. both flights should have been a no go, but the element of money forced the pilots into a bad call.
 
docmirror said:
One real world example of free flight with a buddy, vs the same exact flight that's compensated is the go/no go decision. If you are looking at bad weather, and you don't have money involved, the no go decision is pretty easy. Add the element of compensation(even pro-rata share) and there's a greater impetus to make the flight.

Then, we get Patsy Cline and the day the music died. both flights should have been a no go, but the element of money forced the pilots into a bad call.
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Excellent example of how money can change things.
 
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