Flytenow Hearing

MauleSkinner said:
FlyteNow didn't need to ask permission, either, but they chose to do so...seems a little strange, since they so firmly claim to believe that what they want to do is unquestionably legal.:dunno:
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Did they ask permission before they put up the site? My understanding is that they put up the site and began taking members first. In any case, those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

They gave the FAA the chance to get it right - that isn't inconsistent with believing it's legal. The FAA couldn't come to agreement with them so FlyteNow took the FAA to court. That's putting up instead of shutting up.
 
MauleSkinner said:
FlyteNow didn't need to ask permission, either, but they chose to do so...seems a little strange, since they so firmly claim to believe that what they want to do is unquestionably legal.:dunno:
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Technically true, but the FAA was threatening certificate actions against the pilots. That threat made it a practical necessity.
 
petrolero said:
Did they ask permission before they put up the site? My understanding is that they put up the site and began taking members first. In any case, those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

They gave the FAA the chance to get it right - that isn't inconsistent with believing it's legal. The FAA couldn't come to agreement with them so FlyteNow took the FAA to court. That's putting up instead of shutting up.
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Why go to court? Did the FAA issue a cease and desist order? Are court costs lower now than they would be if they'd continued operation?
 
MauleSkinner said:
Why go to court? Did the FAA issue a cease and desist order? Are court costs lower now than they would be if they'd continued operation?
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My understanding is that the FAA threatened their members with enforcement action. There is no other course of action than to take it to court or shut down - or both.
 
petrolero said:
My understanding is that the FAA threatened their members with enforcement action. There is no other course of action than to take it to court or shut down - or both.
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Doing both would indicate to me that they doubt their position. I know of plenty of people who were willing to continue operations in spite of enforcement threats from the FAA.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Doing both would indicate to me that they doubt their position. I know of plenty of people who were willing to continue operations in spite of enforcement threats from the FAA.
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So where would it have ended up once their certificates were suspended or revoked? Court. Why wait for that event?
 
dtuuri said:
Care to cite where you get that from? According to this article, Air Taxi's are about ten times worse than corporate (column 3 vs. 6).

dtuuri
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The poster I was responding to said that 91 has a worse track record, which would be the opposite of what you are claiming. And note that I said "like equipment" in my post so I am not comparing all 135 with corporate.

In fact, if what you say is true, the FAA should have no problem with 91 operators charging money. After all, they are 10 times safer. :rofl:
 
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PPC1052 said:
Unless I am mistaken as to what you're saying, I think your stats support her assertion. At least the part where she says that privately owned jets don't have a worse record than air taxi. I guess you could quibble with her statement that the stats show their record to be about the same.
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If she's trying to rebut this statement:

Brad Z said:
The general public doesn't understand the huge difference in safety between 91 and 135.
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With this:

Everskyward said:
I would say there isn't a huge difference in safety when comparing like equipment. I don't think privately owned jets flying part 91 have a worse safety record than the same airplanes flying 135.
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It's a non-sequitur. So, I provided a link that supports the original statement. I don't see any connection with "like equipment" in my cite for you to draw the conclusion it supports her assertion. So, either one of you...:

dtuuri said:
Care to cite where you get that from? According to this article, Air Taxi's are about ten times worse than corporate (column 3 vs. 6).

dtuuri
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Everskyward said:
In fact, if what you say is true, the FAA should have no problem with 91 operators charging money. After all, they are 10 times safer. :rofl:
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They don't have a problem with 91 operators charging money, that's why they wrote time-sharing rules. Part 91 operators can join NBAA and do the same under the NBAA's exemption even if they don't fly jets.

Without a cite, I still don't see where "like equipment" relates to "like accident rates". I would say it relates to pilot experience. That's why Corporate Angel Network accident rates using single engine airplanes are indistinquishable from garden variety private pilots with similar experience. Most 135 operators have much more experience and most corporate pilots even more still, IMO. I think that's what the accident rates really track.

dtuuri
 
I'll admit I didn't read all the posts, and I really don't want to discuss the legal issues. The questions I have are: "Will the average non-commercial insurance cover this?" Will the plaintiff lawyers have more ammunition if the PP screws up?

I see this as unacceptable risk for me.
 
petrolero said:
Thank goodness the Wrights didn't have to ask the government for permission to fly their airplane or we'd still be walking.
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They did.

That's why they traveled some 700 miles to nowhere, NC.

Property rights in 1905 were not consistent with aviation. You had no overflight rights of anyone's property. The government had to take that, or there would be no aviation at all.

Can you imagine making a basic 50 mile cross country flight if you had to get the permission of every schlub you passed over?

Pay a visit to the 1909 test flight site in Dayton. They had to fly in circles for hours because they were prohibited from crossing fence lines by the laws of Ohio at the time, without permission from the neighbors.
 
petrolero said:
So where would it have ended up once their certificates were suspended or revoked? Court. Why wait for that event?
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Because they can be in business, making money instead of just spending it? My understanding is that emergency revocations go to court sooner anyway...we could have an answer by now.
 
One of the judges in the case made mention of another avenue of redress other than the court of appeals. Which logically backs up to the FAA making rules up out of whole cloth. If the FAA hadn't expanded, and extended the theory of holding out to include non-comm ops, then there would be no case to hear. But they did, and there is. Flytenow leveraged a technology in a way that wasn't considered 20 years ago, or maybe even 10 years ago. There is no regulatory mechanism to cover what Flytenow decided to do, so the FAA decided to fire a preemptive strike across the bow of the operation.

I guess Flytenow should have just gone into business nevermind anything to do with the FAA and setup their business and go about pairing pax with pilots, then let the chips fall. Not sure what would have happened, but it's what I would have done. Let them come after me, and do the legal thing after the fact. Deal with the regs as they existed at the time they started up.
 
ebetancourt said:
I'll admit I didn't read all the posts, and I really don't want to discuss the legal issues. The questions I have are: "Will the average non-commercial insurance cover this?" Will the plaintiff lawyers have more ammunition if the PP screws up?

I see this as unacceptable risk for me.
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I'm wondering the same thing, and I HAVE read the whole thread.
 
MAKG1 said:
They did.

That's why they traveled some 700 miles to nowhere, NC.

Property rights in 1905 were not consistent with aviation. You had no overflight rights of anyone's property. The government had to take that, or there would be no aviation at all.

Can you imagine making a basic 50 mile cross country flight if you had to get the permission of every schlub you passed over?

Pay a visit to the 1909 test flight site in Dayton. They had to fly in circles for hours because they were prohibited from crossing fence lines by the laws of Ohio at the time, without permission from the neighbors.
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Wow!
.
 
bflynn said:
Profit is a necessary part of a successful business, but not required in a business. The argument that lack of profit = no business is a non-starter, especially in the airlines business...
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In my non-attorney opinion, the criterion should be whether there is a profit motive, not whether a profit is actually made.
 
Palmpilot said:
In my non-attorney opinion, the criterion should be whether there is a profit motive, not whether a profit is actually made.
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Why?

Let's say Flytenow decides to be a non-profit, and pays their staff generously. Anything change?
 
denverpilot said:
Why?

Let's say Flytenow decides to be a non-profit, and pays their staff generously. Anything change?
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I think he was rebutting the concept that "profit" is required for something to be a "business", not the specifics of Flytenow.

He's right, a profit motive is what defines a business. Just because a business loses money doesn't change the motivation.
 
I don't think that Flytenow's profit is an issue since Flytenow is not providing the airplane or pilot.
 
JeffDG said:
I think he was rebutting the concept that "profit" is required for something to be a "business", not the specifics of Flytenow.

He's right, a profit motive is what defines a business. Just because a business loses money doesn't change the motivation.
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I don't have a usable personal opinion or a prediction about the case.

But from a historical perspective, I think the "holding out" question is more about public perception than profit motive. The original common law concept - going at least back to the stagecoach - was the way one differentiated a common carrier from a private one. One of the early differences between them was liability. A common carrier's liability was the earliest form of strict liability. There are cases on it at least as far back as 18th century England. The strict liability was was based on a legal expectation that, once entrusted, the common carrier had to meet the obligation to carry the person or the goods and get them to the destination safely. "Holding out" the availability of services to the public was just one of the factors to show whether or not the transporter was a common carrier or not.

The guy who is shipping a package or traveling probably doesn't know or give a crap whether the transporter is making a profit, wants to make a profit, or simply defraying some costs for something he likes to do. Maybe that 1800s stagecoach operator likes to travel around the country and figires, "if I take a passenger and some goods for sale, it will cost me less." The customer just wants to know that he's got safe, reliable transport.

The question is ultimately whether he should. What duties, responsibilities, and regulation should flow from the relationship? Those are (and always have been) questions about social objectives. Profit motive is typically a bad guideline for that, although it definitely plays a part - the modern limitations of common law carrier liability are mostly regulatory and, I'll take a wild guess, were primarily supported by the carriers.
 
denverpilot said:
Why?

Let's say Flytenow decides to be a non-profit, and pays their staff generously. Anything change?
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I don't see how that scenario would fit within the expense-sharing regulation.
 
JeffDG said:
I think he was rebutting the concept that "profit" is required for something to be a "business", not the specifics of Flytenow.

He's right, a profit motive is what defines a business. Just because a business loses money doesn't change the motivation.
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Yes, that was what I was trying to get at.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I don't have a usable personal opinion or a prediction about the case.

But from a historical perspective, I think the "holding out" question is more about public perception than profit motive. The original common law concept - going at least back to the stagecoach - was the way one differentiated a common carrier from a private one. One of the early differences between them was liability. A common carrier's liability was the earliest form of strict liability. There are cases on it at least as far back as 18th century England. The strict liability was was based on a legal expectation that, once entrusted, the common carrier had to meet the obligation to carry the person or the goods and get them to the destination safely. "Holding out" the availability of services to the public was just one of the factors to show whether or not the transporter was a common carrier or not.

The guy who is shipping a package or traveling probably doesn't know or give a crap whether the transporter is making a profit, wants to make a profit, or simply defraying some costs for something he likes to do. Maybe that 1800s stagecoach operator likes to travel around the country and figires, "if I take a passenger and some goods for sale, it will cost me less." The customer just wants to know that he's got safe, reliable transport.

The question is ultimately whether he should. What duties, responsibilities, and regulation should flow from the relationship? Those are (and always have been) questions about social objectives. Profit motive is typically a bad guideline for that, although it definitely plays a part - the modern limitations of common law carrier liability are mostly regulatory and, I'll take a wild guess, were primarily supported by the carriers.
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Would car pooling raise the same issues? If not, maybe the way to avoid confusion on the part of the non-pilots involved would be to present it as being similar to a car pool.
 
Palmpilot said:
Would car pooling raise the same issues? If not, maybe the way to avoid confusion on the part of the non-pilots involved would be to present it as being similar to a car pool.
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Maybe. But I think the FAA would counter that in a car pool, the passengers know within minutes that they are dealing with a bad driver. They just don't have the similar knowledge and experience base for a pilot. Consider how even airline passengers judge the quality of a pilot on the landing and that a pilot who does a fantastic job with a substantial gusting crosswind is likely a "bad" pilot in their eyes because it wasn't a greaser.

That might ultimately be the problem. Might even make the FlyteNow concept unworkable even if permitted. But that's a separate question.
 
JeffDG said:
I think he was rebutting the concept that "profit" is required for something to be a "business", not the specifics of Flytenow.



He's right, a profit motive is what defines a business. Just because a business loses money doesn't change the motivation.
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I was not referring to Flytenow either. I was responding to the concept that a business must make a profit to be a business. Which it does not.

So it can't be used as the litmus test for a "commercial" aviation operation in any way.

Replace Flytenow with "next group that tries this and not only claims but is a non-profit organization".

Of course Mangiamele defined profit/compensation as some esoteric thing we might get "someday" anyway, so I'm not sure how one squares that with any of this.

Under the current interpretations, I'm pretty sure if you are single and take a girl or guy up flying because they might enjoy it enough that you'd later maybe get laid, the FAA would claim you were being "compensated" by maybe someday getting boinked.

But maybe not, if you don't log it.
 
But Flytenow is not providing either the pilot or the airplane so they don't need to worry about the cost-sharing rule applying to them. Of course if all their pilot members get violations they will not have any business.
 
Everskyward said:
But Flytenow is not providing either the pilot or the airplane so they don't need to worry about the cost-sharing rule applying to them. Of course if all their pilot members get violations they will not have any business.
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Hey. There's a thought.

If you mix my joking analogy with your correct assertion, you realize that Flytenow is in the same business model as a pimp.

They didn't do the deed, but they make sure it can happen.

One would therefore need some new rules about aviation pimps to cover the eventuality of the future hook-up.

LOL!
 
denverpilot said:
If you mix my joking analogy with your correct assertion, you realize that Flytenow is in the same business model as a pimp.
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I was thinking that they had the same business models as charter brokers who don't need an operating certificate, only a phone and a computer.
 
denverpilot said:
Under the current interpretations, I'm pretty sure if you are single and take a girl or guy up flying because they might enjoy it enough that you'd later maybe get laid, the FAA would claim you were being "compensated" by maybe someday getting boinked.
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They've declared "goodwill" as compensation.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Maybe. But I think the FAA would counter that in a car pool, the passengers know within minutes that they are dealing with a bad driver. They just don't have the similar knowledge and experience base for a pilot. Consider how even airline passengers judge the quality of a pilot on the landing and that a pilot who does a fantastic job with a substantial gusting crosswind is likely a "bad" pilot in their eyes because it wasn't a greaser.

That might ultimately be the problem. Might even make the FlyteNow concept unworkable even if permitted. But that's a separate question.
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By the time you're in the car, it's too late to do anything about it, unless you don't care about getting to your destination late.
 
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