Reselling N-Numbers as a Business

To me this seems much like the concert ticket bots.

Gone are the days of you and your buddies coming out in front of the stadium ticket window to get those sweet AC/DC tickets that go on sale at midnight.

Now, at 12:00:00.1, ticket bots scoop up huge swaths of available tickets to resell on the secondary market at a huge markup.

Now, if your daughter and her friends want to go to the Cardi B concert for her 12th birthday, you end up paying 5-10x the face value for that.
Legal? Yes (depending on the state). Scummy? Also yes (in all 50 states).
 
Sluggo63 said:
Now, at 12:00:00.1, ticket bots scoop up huge swaths of available tickets to resell on the secondary market at a huge markup.

Now, if your daughter and her friends want to go to the Cardi B concert for her 12th birthday, you end up paying 5-10x the face value for that.
Legal? Yes (depending on the state). Scummy? Also yes (in all 50 states).
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The counter argument is that the tickets are underpriced to begin with. If there are swaths of people willing to pay much more, why should the promoter give up the profit?
 
Hang 4 said:
The counter argument is that the tickets are underpriced to begin with. If there are swaths of people willing to pay much more, why should the promoter give up the profit?
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Because it looks better if they “sell out”
 
If it’s not expressly forbidden that’s capitalism baby! Seek or stumble into a perceived opportunity and take it… it’s the backbone of biz existence…
 
Hang 4 said:
The counter argument is that the tickets are underpriced to begin with. If there are swaths of people willing to pay much more, why should the promoter give up the profit?
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The promoter wants to sell as many tickets as possible and target a very wide audience. The scalper can be more targeted and speculative. He wants to get the greatest profit for each ticket and he only has to sell whichever ones he chose to buy. They're optimizing for different things. That said, ticket prices have gone up a lot, and the big promoters have gotten into "scalping" special seats and setting up their own resale markets, so they are trying to capture more of that consumer surplus.
 
Huckster79 said:
If it’s not expressly forbidden that’s capitalism baby! Seek or stumble into a perceived opportunity and take it… it’s the backbone of biz existence…
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It's free riding, which is a sign of market failure. It's not a positive for capitalism or free markets.
 
If a “solution” is really necessary I only have one requirement. No additional burden in cost or time to regular customers of the system. Perhaps a regulation stating that mass reservation on numbers with the express purpose of resale is not allowed.

I could not care less about actual operators of aircraft reserving n numbers with the intent to use them one day for a fleet.

If the only way to stop profiting from reserve numbers inconveniences me at all the solution is a bigger pain than the problem ever was in the beginning.

Not surprised at all that the FAA guy said no problem we can just add another inspection to get that n number.
 
NoHeat said:
OT: how do you format entries in this FAA search page

https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberAvailabilityInquiry
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Put whatever you want your number to end in in the trailing characters field and the range of digits you want to check. I left the trailing characters blank and put 1 and 99999 in the starting and ending range, respectively. It returned over 40K available N-numbers. Just for fun I tried 'RV" in the trailing characters and 1 & 999 in the range (3 digits in the ending range because it's 5 characters max and 'RV' counts as 2). That returned 126 available numbers. It's clear that the squatters are not preventing anyone from getting an N number to register and airplane, just maybe not the one they want.

Lindberg said:
It's free riding, which is a sign of market failure. It's not a positive for capitalism or free markets.
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See above. It's easy to get an N-number without using the 'service' we're discussing.

Nauga,
and a register risk
 
1) You have to have a pilot certificate, Private or higher to reserve a number. Requires name, address and certificate number.

2) You have to be a manufacturer or operator of aircraft (airline, flight school, etc). Requires registering with the FAA with proof of operation of more than XX number of aircraft.

Otherwise, you cannot reserve a number.

Easy Peasy.
 
Pinecone said:
1) You have to have a pilot certificate, Private or higher to reserve a number. Requires name, address and certificate number.

2) You have to be a manufacturer or operator of aircraft (airline, flight school, etc). Requires registering with the FAA with proof of operation of more than XX number of aircraft.

Otherwise, you cannot reserve a number.

Easy Peasy.
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So, if I want to build an LSA E-AB aircraft to fly on my sport pilot certificate, no reserved N number. That makes sense - real pilots have real medicals.
OTOH, if I have a Private certificate, I could start a company to reserve and resell vanity numbers.

------------------> :) <-------------------
 
nauga said:
The more you narrow things down to stop bulk N-number registrations, the more legitimate users you exclude...
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Pinecone said:
1) You have to have a pilot certificate, Private or higher to reserve a number. Requires name, address and certificate number.

2) You have to be a manufacturer or operator of aircraft (airline, flight school, etc). Requires registering with the FAA with proof of operation of more than XX number of aircraft.

Otherwise, you cannot reserve a number.

Easy Peasy.
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I met someone this week who built an airplane and earned his PP-ASEL in it. I'm also familiar with several companies formed to produce Ex/AB kits that started by producing a single airplane to test. There's that exclusion of legitimate users I was talking about, one for each proposed 'rule'.

Nauga,
and a hairball
 
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Come on people, it would be easy to make the system work for experimentals. Just require proof of the beginning of a build. Be it a purchase agreement for a kit, or a picture of the beginning of build that is from scratch. It's a small percentage of the airplanes registered out there.

Reselling government required registrations should just not be a thing. What's next, buying up ebt cards?
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
Any time the government is involved, it’s not capitalism.
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how so? It’s not the govt re-selling these N numbers. It’s a capitalist who bought them from the govt.

if that broad brush statement were true- literally nothing but illegal drug trade darn near “wouldn’t be capitalism”

in my business large sums of money are moved around, it’s the Fed that moves it to FDIC insured banks- therefore govt is involved. So what is my biz if it’s not part of capitalism?

I have a friend who’s a trucker, he’s an entrepreneur but his trucks run on roads provided by the government. Some loads are for the govt and paid for by the govt. Is his biz not part of capitalism?

Another friend is an IA and makes a living off of working on airplanes because the gov’t says I can’t do it all on my own legally. So is he not being a capitalist?

The govt charging a fee for an N number is not capitalism itself for sure. But a capitalist taking advantage of an opportunity that touches govt along the way, or takes advantage of an opportunity created by the govt is still capitalism. This isn’t political it’s simple civics…
 
Lindberg said:
It's free riding, which is a sign of market failure. It's not a positive for capitalism or free markets.
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I don’t necessarily disagree with that at all either. Good or bad tho- it’s someone who seen an opportunity and took it….
 
PaulS said:
Come on people, it would be easy to make the system work for experimentals. Just require proof of the beginning of a build. Be it a purchase agreement for a kit, or a picture of the beginning of build that is from scratch. It's a small percentage of the airplanes registered out there.

Reselling government required registrations should just not be a thing. What's next, buying up ebt cards?
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That was my suggestion for requiring a serial number. A builder can make up his serial number before bucking rivet #1. Of course "short n numbers" can make up a spreadsheet of fake serial numbers or aluminum plates with random numbers stamped into them. The only solution I can come up with is requiring the n number to be tied to that serial number for some period like 5 or 10 years. Maybe this company would be willing to sit on them for that long though.

You could require the EAB to get an airworthiness cert after a certain period or the n number goes back in the bin. That would light a fire under these builders! In fact that's probably the only way I'd ever get an EAB finished...with a deadline.
 
PaulS said:
Come on people, it would be easy to make the system work for experimentals.
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It already works for experimentals. You want to add additional overhead and regulator involvement to the process. I do not.

Nauga,
who would like to avoid imperial entaglements
 
Huckster79 said:
how so? It’s not the govt re-selling these N numbers. It’s a capitalist who bought them from the govt.
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It appears based on comments that the company(s) have an inside track. I don’t have the option (or freedom) to bypass the company which doesn’t provide any extra value, they’ve inserted themselves in the middle (the proverbial middleman) between me and the government.
 
Would it work if the FAA made it illegal for private party transactions of N-numbers not on an aircraft?
Must be a way to legally phrase something like that.
 
nauga said:
Put whatever you want your number to end in in the trailing characters field and the range of digits you want to check. I left the trailing characters blank and put 1 and 99999 in the starting and ending range, respectively. It returned over 40K available N-numbers. Just for fun I tried 'RV" in the trailing characters and 1 & 999 in the range (3 digits in the ending range because it's 5 characters max and 'RV' counts as 2). That returned 126 available numbers. It's clear that the squatters are not preventing anyone from getting an N number to register and airplane, just maybe not the one they want.

See above. It's easy to get an N-number without using the 'service' we're discussing.

Nauga,
and a register risk
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So, since I have enough extra $$ laying around, you would have zero issue with me purchasing every single available N-number out there, and squatting on them and selling them at 1000x markup? Just wondering where the demarcation line is.
 
I just sent an inquiry on one of the 3 digit numbers that's been squatted on. Will let you know what the price is.
 
PaulS said:
…What's next, buying up ebt cards?
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You do realize there’s a very healthy secondary market for public assistance ent cards, don’t you? It may be a gray or black market, but they exist widely.
 
TCABM said:
You do realize there’s a very healthy secondary market for public assistance ent cards, don’t you? It may be a gray or black market, but they exist widely.
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Sad but true. Look up the practice of "water dumping" ...
 
schmookeeg said:
Bold strategy. :D I'd have taken the over -- I think 5 is gonna be way light, and the opening ask will be more like 25 or 50 grand.
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I am regularly surprised by the ways rich people set fire to money.

That said, I would expect a snazzier website if there was that much money in it.
 
I'm betting it's scaled based on perceived desirability.
 
If a lot of folks go to the site and request that number ... will the amount that was quoted change? :dunno:
 
If your initials were EF in the quote request email, I'll bet that alone changed the quote.

I'll guess $7500 as their opening bid. With room to negotiate.
 
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