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The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

blog.flytenow.com

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Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#31

Post by paulgerhardt »

voska wrote: post #10
smackfu wrote: post #9

It's interesting to read the linked letter from FAA counsel. The interpretation is that if the pilot was going to fly from A to B anyway, they can take passengers from A to B because the passengers and the pilot have a common purpose of getting from A to B. But if the pilot is only flying from A to B because the passengers want to do it, then the pilot has a different purpose than the passengers, and it's illegal. Th…

"if you are traveling to Long Island for a wedding but your passengers express an interest in going to Long Island to attend a baseball game." "Based on these facts, there appears to be a bona fide common purpose, as the destination was dictated by the pilot, not the passengers, and both you and your passengers have personal business to conduct in Long Island" You can't just go there to transport people, but if you w…

From that same letter, the FAA seems to strongly imply it's ok to ask your friends if they want a ride on Facebook (say by posting in your own feed) but not ok to ask the General Public by 'holding out' (by posting in a public group on Facebook). "Holding out is accomplished when one communicates to the public, or a segment to the public, that transportation services are indiscriminately available to any person with whom contact is made."

Signing up for FlyteNow and playing around with the website makes it pretty clear there is 'holding out' going on here. Which is a shame because it's a rather nice idea and more akin to carpooling aggregators than Lyft or Uber. Being able to see if pilots have previous airline or military experience is a plus too.

Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#32

Post by msandford »

rdl wrote: post #29
declan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Flytenow would make this a more attractive proposition by agreeing to pay my attorney fees if the FAA takes action against me because of a Flytenow flight. That would include representing me before the FAA in administrative proceedings and in federal court as far as I choose. (I'm a private pilot, not a commercial pilot.) Better yet, because I'm not aware of the funding behind Flytenow, put the estimated m…

I wonder how much an insurance policy to cover this risk for Flytenow would cost them.

It probably can't be bought. Most insurance relies on there being some kind of probabilities associated with different outcomes, and that the insurer can sell enough policies such that they capture the law of large numbers and the idea of an expected outcome is valid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

If Flytenow wants to cover this, they're going to be self-insuring and the policy is only good as far as the company has cash or credit to pay legal bills.

Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#33

Post by noonespecial »

Forgetting the legality of the matter for a moment: Inexperienced pilots plus small planes plus the pressure of an implicit promise to fly at a certain time is a bad mix.

CPLs get extra training and experience that GAs don't that helps them say "I know you're paying lots of money and are very important and all that but we're not flying through that".

My gut instinct on services like this is that somebody is going to die. The FAA is making an ass of themselves in the tech community with the drone nonsense right now, but these rules are written on tombstones.

Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#35

Post by yock »

noonespecial wrote: post #33

Forgetting the legality of the matter for a moment: Inexperienced pilots plus small planes plus the pressure of an implicit promise to fly at a certain time is a bad mix. CPLs get extra training and experience that GAs don't that helps them say "I know you're paying lots of money and are very important and all that but we're not flying through that". My gut instinct on services like this is that somebody is going to…

The opposite situation might even be worse. Pilot-in-command says you're go, but you're not keen on the weather. Suddenly the PIC is super pissed that you're not sharing the cost of the ride anymore, and you have a lot of very bad options. Pay for a ride you aren't going to take, get in an airplane in circumstances you feel aren't safe, or piss off this individual who's going to bad mouth you to everyone he knows.

It really seems like this could persuade a lot of people to make bad decisions.

Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#36

Post by neurotech1 »

maxcan wrote: post #2

It may be FAR compliant, it may not be. But, like Lyft drivers getting tickets, if shit goes down, you're going to pay the price, not Flytenow. I'm not gonna sacrifice my certificate to find out. I'd rather spend those legal fees on a CPL.

Even with a Commercial Airmans Certificate (aka CPL), you would also need a Air Operators Certificate before you can advertise services to the general public. This helps ensure the operator has procedures in place.

IANAL but because "funds" change hands and involves people with no prior relationship, its commercial enough to be a problem.

Organizations such as Angelflight do facilitate volunteer pilots flying people around for charitable purposes such as transport for medical care. This is legal as the pilot doesn't receive any compensation for the flight.

Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#37

Post by maxcan »

noonespecial wrote: post #33

Forgetting the legality of the matter for a moment: Inexperienced pilots plus small planes plus the pressure of an implicit promise to fly at a certain time is a bad mix. CPLs get extra training and experience that GAs don't that helps them say "I know you're paying lots of money and are very important and all that but we're not flying through that". My gut instinct on services like this is that somebody is going to…

> these rules are written on tombstones.

I love the way you phrased that.

Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#38

Post by snowballsteve »

sokoloff wrote: post #19
will_brown wrote: post #3

I know the prevailing philosophy in the start-up world is that its better to ask forgiveness than ask permission...but legally I would take the conservative approach and suspend services to pilots with only a private license, and pending the FAA response only permit those with a commercial license? Hell flytenow could even sponsor the cost of pilots getting their commercial, in exchange for exclusivity until the amou…

If they suspend service to pilots without a commercial license, they harm their overall position, IMO. It is not enough to have a commercial rating. If you are engaging in an (technically, almost any) operation which requires a commercial rating, you also need a 2nd class medical certificate and most of those operations would fall into part 135 (charter) or part 121 (scheduled airline service). The items that a comme…

It seems like their operation would fall in the exact same legal situation as Angel flights, or Pilot's for Paws, or Lighthawk. None of which seem to have common-purpose. Now these organizations seem to ignore compensation issues, but there are cases where logging hours alone was deemed compensation so it is arguable that compensation does occur irregardless of monetary transactions. I can't help but notice though that these organizations often require 500 or 1000 hours of their volunteer pilots, which could likely make many of them CPL holders already.

Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#39

Post by belorn »

noonespecial wrote: post #33

Forgetting the legality of the matter for a moment: Inexperienced pilots plus small planes plus the pressure of an implicit promise to fly at a certain time is a bad mix. CPLs get extra training and experience that GAs don't that helps them say "I know you're paying lots of money and are very important and all that but we're not flying through that". My gut instinct on services like this is that somebody is going to…

>> an implicit promise to fly at a certain time

Is there such implicit promise? The information of the site seems to strongly imply that the pilot decide when and if a trip happens, and only if the trip actually happens will anyone be charged money.

The FAQ even says that this is not a airline or charter service, and one is simply sharing a ride on a airplane and splitting the costs. If that feeling of basically hitchhiking is not instilled, then flytenow might want to consider making that part more prominent on the website.

Re: The Legality of Ride Sharing in Aviation

#40

Post by sokoloff »

snowballsteve wrote: post #38
sokoloff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they suspend service to pilots without a commercial license, they harm their overall position, IMO. It is not enough to have a commercial rating. If you are engaging in an (technically, almost any) operation which requires a commercial rating, you also need a 2nd class medical certificate and most of those operations would fall into part 135 (charter) or part 121 (scheduled airline service). The items that a comme…

It seems like their operation would fall in the exact same legal situation as Angel flights, or Pilot's for Paws, or Lighthawk. None of which seem to have common-purpose. Now these organizations seem to ignore compensation issues, but there are cases where logging hours alone was deemed compensation so it is arguable that compensation does occur irregardless of monetary transactions. I can't help but notice though th…

I fly PnP somewhat regularly and have done Angel Flights in the past. There is no compensation at play for those flights, making them perfectly legal Part 91 operations. I pay, out of pocket, 100% of the costs of those flights.

The FAA has conclusively ruled (first in 1993) that the ability of a pilot, who is paying 100% of the costs of the flight, to claim a charitable deduction for those costs is NOT compensation.

Flight time that you paid 100% of the costs to do is never a problem in terms of a compensation concern for a private pilot.

From: http://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2012/media/JulAug201...

As you probably know, the FAA interprets “compensation” as meaning the receipt of anything of value. However, the FAA Chief Counsel’s office has clarified the issue of charitable deductions in a number of interpretations. Specifically, it has stated that “since Congress has provided for the tax deductibility of some costs of charitable acts, the FAA will not treat charitable deductions of such costs, standing alone, as constituting ‘compensation or hire’ for the purpose of enforcing [the Federal Aviation Regulations].” (Note: This interpretation is specifically addressed in FAA Order 8900.1 (Volume 4, Chapter 5, Section 1, paragraph 4-922) which also states that “inspectors should not treat the tax deductibility of costs as constituting ‘compensation or hire’ when flights are conducted for humanitarian purposes.”)

It would be hard to argue that Flytenow's operations fall into the category of "conducted for humanitarian purposes", plus the fact that money is changing hands, so this situation isn't at all like AngelFlight, PnP, Dove Flights (Citation Special Olympics airlift), etc. in the eyes of the FAA.

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