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Flight sharing sites (general discussion) (merged)

Dear all,

This has been on my mind for a while but is also connected to the “mentoring” discussion that came up a few days ago here.

I’ve been spending some thought on something like a pan-European (possibly global) flight sharing website. I know only one such site currently and that is limited to Germany (eddh.de) and it is a bit low key in that it’s really just a part of a pilot information platform and not a dedicated service.

What I want is a more universal (i.e. with at least an English, possibly localized, interface) and easy-to-use, dedicated site to post and search for GA flights with “open” seats. Ideally, the search could be ran map-based or alternatively with real-time filters that change the list of results as you change the filters (e.g. extend your departure radius to any airfield within 25 km around your desired city).

That’s the vision. Now I’m wondering if I should spend some of those awfully long, cold, dark winter nights realizing this. Obviously, there are pitfalls. I can see two major ones:

1) Popularity/Visibility. I can imagine visbility among GA pilots will be ok, talking about it on forums, spreading by word-of-mouth, etc. Visibility among the non-pilot population, however, will be low. After all, as this is non-commercial, there wont be any advertising.
2) Legal issues. Obviously, there is a thin line between what is legal and what is not, in terms of private pilots carrying passengers and even posting their flights on a website. The legal implications will differ per country (or per authority, rather), but I would see this as comparable to car ride-sharing websites and private accomodation such as Airbnb. In both cases, the platform brings people together and it is the responsibility of the users to not break the rules. I’d think this would be difficult for US private pilots due to their “common purpose” requirement, but it obviously works for Germany with the existing site – as long as your posts don’t suggest “general availability” for flights requested by PAX. You need to make sure you only post flights that are planned and you’re willing to take PAX with you or not.

An aspect I had not thought about before the mentoring discussion is bringing private pilots together to fly together for mentoring purposes. This could well be integrated into such a platform.

I’d be interested in what you as the GA community think about this. Completely nuts? Good idea but unrealistic? Or have you been waiting for it all along?

Cheers

Patrick

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

Just found this… A PAID service, though.

http://flightshare.com/

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

Hello Patrick,

I have developped a very similar website a few years back. The aim was a kind of “plane-pooling”. Meaning, putting in touch pilots with empty seats with would-be passengers. The site has become fairly well known in France (several articles in newspapers including “Le Monde”) and gets several hundreds of ads a year (many if not most of them from non pilots seeking flights). It is completely free to use. It also works for car-pooling.
The site is available in French and English. It would need a little work to add new eurpean countries but not much. The URL is
http://aerostop.free.fr
If that’s what you have in mind then no need to do it. I completely agree with the legal issues you raise. They are included in the advices given to pilots advertising their flights.
The site as it is could also be used to offer mentoring, with a simple comment restricting the offer of seats to other fellow-pilots. If the site became used in this way on a large scale, it would be easy to add a new feature for mentoring.
Please let me know. Other people interested in mentoring can also give their opinion.

Edit : part of non pilots ads

Last Edited by TThierry at 14 Nov 12:46
SE France

Speaking from the UK angle, it is illegal to advertise the sharing of costs – except within the confines of a flying club and those cost sharing need to be club members – details here. The terms “flying club” were never AFAIK defined by the CAA to mean a physical building so one could speculate a web community qualifies, but who knows? I have never heard of any enforcement in this area. What the CAA seems to keep a tight lid on is schemes which are effectively charters without an AOC.

What seems 100% legal is the advertising of spare seats and that has been going on for years.

It is well known that many or most pilots will not fly unless they can find somebody to cost share with, but details like that can be agreed privately between them offline.

I think this kind of thing is a very worthwhile project, but it needs to be done well, because there is a number of websites around so the effectiveness gets very diluted – especially as most flights are only relatively short so the relevant geographical area is small.

Personally, I have often wanted to find somebody to fly with on longer trips, and have acquired quite a collection of phone numbers from people who are interested, but virtually every time I contacted one of them, they were unable to go on a given date, and it was a slow process because you can’t ask the next one until the previous one has said No, so now I don’t bother asking anymore

Last Edited by Peter at 14 Nov 13:03
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There is at least one more in the US (can’t remember the URL now), but it seems to get very little traffic, no doubt because of the ‘common purpose’ rule.

The idea, however, would be great!

One idea: it would be great to be able to specify a region rather a precise point of departure. For example, I will need to go to Brittany week after next. I don’t really mind where I land, as long as there is car rental there. Likewise, I don’t mind where in the Greater London area (or indeed SE England) I depart from. Currently I’m booked on Ryanair…. ;-((

I think most pilots wold be rather flexible with departure / arrival points.

The terms “flying club” were never AFAIK defined by the CAA to mean a physical building so one could speculate a web community qualifies, but who knows? I have never heard of any enforcement in this area. What the CAA seems to keep a tight lid on is schemes which are effectively charters without an AOC.

I suspect the way to play it safe would be to make a membership-based site with the actual flight sharing information visible to registered members only.

By the way, the Czech CAA seems to be taking a more liberal view, replacing the cost sharing concept with a non-profit use one, where a PPL holder can accept compensation up to the actual cost of the flight, but not a penny more. I haven’t really looked it up in the regulations, but that’s what all instructors have been telling us.

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

By the way, the Czech CAA seems to be taking a more liberal view,

Nice – but shouldn’t all this be regulated by EASA now ??

Nice – but shouldn’t all this be regulated by EASA now ??

A good one! Yes, EASA regulates this and then, on top of that, every country has their own practice. Sound familiar?

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Plus you get interesting bits like it being illegal to cost share at all in UK airspace in any aircraft other than G-reg (ANO article 225 or whatever the current number is now).

So I never ask for a contribution from a passenger

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
304 Posts
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