Clear the Runway: The Fight Over ‘Uber for Planes’ Is Coming to Congress
11th April 2018
How does the government screw things up? Let me count the ways….
Long before anyone was talking about the sharing economy, private pilots across the United States were already engaging in it. They used bulletin boards at general aviation airports to advertise planned trips to prospective passengers who might want to come along for the ride and share the costs of the flight.
When drivers do this, it’s called ‘carpooling’ and they get special lanes to drive in and Greenie points that cannot be traded for valuable prizes.
Pilots do that because flying is an expensive hobby. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association warns would-be aviators to be prepared to spend more than $225 an hour when all flying costs—including fuel, insurance, and airport fees—are included. Since private pilots have to log at least three takeoffs and landings every 90 days to maintain their licenses, there aren’t many viable ways to dodge those costs. So they’ve been sharing costs with passengers since at least the 1960s. For pilots, it’s a crucial method of financing a flying habit. For passengers, it’s an alternative way to reach a destination.
In the age of Uber, it has the potential to be much more. But the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stands in the way.
In 2014, the FAA shut down attempts to turn those analog billboards into digital ones, ruling that pilots who use online flight-sharing apps would be regulated as “common carriers” like commercial airlines. While that ruling doesn’t directly ban those apps, no private pilot making weekend trips in a single-engine Cessna is going to subject himself or herself to the additional licensing and certification requirements (or mandatory liability insurance) necessary to be a commercial pilot in the eyes of FAA.
In the wake of the agency’s ruling, one of those just-launched apps, FlyteNow, took the federal regulator to court. But last year the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case, seemingly grounding the apps for good.
Now Congress has an opportunity to overrule the FAA.