Flight sharing sites (general discussion) (merged)

Snoopy wrote:

Another deranged guy wanted to send his 8 year old daughter somewhere.

Sounds like he had a can of worms…

I set up some wingly flights for fun but the commission seemed too high. Don’t remember exactly but maybe 1/4 to 1/5 of the flight price. Most people that inquired had absolutely no clue about GA, the type of plane, licensing etc. One couple inquired if it would be possible to fly them with plenty of baggage across the alps in winter to another airport where they would catch a holiday airline flight. I explained get-there-itis, icing, weather, limits of the plane (fiki SR22) etc… they were quite amazed as they’d done it before with someone else (in a 172!). Another deranged guy wanted to send his 8 year old daughter somewhere. I asked him: „You want to put your daughter in a small private piston plane with a stranger whose abilities you know nothing about?“
He replied: „Sure, flying is the safest form of transport!“

I support wingly and the idea behind it, but it is also a can of worms.

Peter wrote:

That’s interesting too, because, as with booking.com and airb&b repeat bookings, most people will contact the apartment directly. It would make sense to do the same when flight sharing, because you avoid the site commission.

That would depend on how many pilots using Wingly get ‘repeat passengers’. Depends on the passenger I suppose. I have no idea how prevalent that is, but as you say if it did happen they would probably take each other’s phone numbers and cut Wingly out of the deal.

I think that people are quietly getting on with it.

That’s interesting too, because, as with booking.com and airb&b repeat bookings, most people will contact the apartment directly. It would make sense to do the same when flight sharing, because you avoid the site commission.

I think that people are quietly getting on with it. Most of the fuss, as far as I can see, was kicked up by commercial pilots and AOCs who (for whatever reason) thought that ‘business’ was being stolen from them. Clearly it is not.

Read again carefully….

Graham wrote:

so long as the passenger is not paying the pilot and choosing the date/time/desintation

They cannot remunerate the pilot for his/her time/skills/efforts. They can pay for aircraft costs, fuel, landing fees etc. because that is not the same thing as paying the pilot. Lots of long-established law (tax law) makes it clear that paying someone and paying their expenses are fundamentally different things.

To make cost sharing an actual issue which would even require the authorities to issue the guidance they have, there would need to be a regulation which effectively said “A PPL may not be paid to fly, nor may a third party pay the costs of their flying. A PPL is required to pay the full direct operating cost of each aeroplane hour which they log.”

The whole thing hinges on a lot of people thinking that a regulation says (or means) something that it doesn’t. There are lots of examples of this in various regulatory debates, for instance those who insist that if you instruct at night you are by definition ‘teaching night flying’, those who insist that if you fly an ILS in visual conditions it is a ‘practice approach’, and those who insist that unless they are an instructor the PIC must sit in the left seat.

Do you mean that paid flight sharing is fizzling out, or it is carrying on but with a lower media profile?

so long as the passenger is not paying the pilot and choosing the date/time/desintation

That’s exactly what is current regulation does allow

I think the noise is fizzling out as more and more people realise that it’s a non-issue.

The mistake a lot of folks made in approaching the issue was that they took the starting point that a PPL cannot be paid to fly and incorrectly interpreted it to mean that a PPL must pay the costs of their flying. Of course there is no such rule, and once you accept that then the issue goes away so long as the passenger is not paying the pilot and choosing the date/time/desintation.

Isn’t it the other way round? The likes of MyDays etc.. offering „shady“ flights that are NOT cost shared?

What is the general feeling on this subject today?

Have flight sharing sites moved forward, or is the interest slowing down?

Apart from an ongoing and apparently vigorous debate in the French aeroclub scene social media, one hears less and less about it…