Website Connects People Going Places With Private Pilots With Empty Seats

It seems like it should be pretty intuitive. Let's say you're a private pilot flying to your favorite getaway, and you've got a couple of empty seats in the airplane. You go onto a website and post that you're flying to that destination and see if anyone else is looking to go to that place. They are. You offer them a ride, asking only that your passengers help pay for gas and incidental expenses, if any. Sort of like offering a ride to your best friend ... except you don't know them until you meet at the airport.

Well, that's not allowed, according to the U.S. Government. Listing the flight makes you a scheduled carrier according to the FAA. And that got Flytenow in legal trouble, though the site still appears to be active.

Politico reports that the founders of Flytenow have taken their case to a federal appeals court, hoping that they can convince the FAA that they're not operating as an airline. They say that the website helps private pilots offset the ever-rising costs of flying, and is no different from putting such a notice on an airport bulletin board, a practice that has been around for more than 50 years and one that the FAA has previously explicitly endorsed.

But the Justice Department said in court documents that its rules are created to protect the public, which may not be able to adequately "evaluate the safety qualifications of pilots they do not know, making it critical for the government to regulate stringently the qualifications of pilots providing transportation to the general public.”

The FAA says that someone who accepts a ride that was posted at a local airport is more likely to know the pilot who will be flying the airplane, whereas Flytenow, and AirPooler, a similar service that is also embroiled in the controversy but not involved in the lawsuit, expand the pool of potential cost-sharers to a much broader audience.

Politico reports that Rebecca MacPherson, who formerly was assistant chief counsel to the FAA and who now is representing AirPooler, said that she understands the FAA's caution, but said it should have opted to "monitor for bad players" rather than shut down the businesses. She also said that pilots are not likely to take flights to places they don't want to go simply to get a fraction of their fuel expenses paid.

The two services do charge to operate the websites. Flytenow assesses a $10 fee from passengers, while AirPooler skims 20 percent from the pilot's share of the reimbursement.

A group of lawmakers, including representatives Todd Rokita (R-IN), who is a member of the House GA Caucus, and Joe Kennedy (D-MA) said in a letter to the FAA in December that the issue is important enough that the agency should regulate it specifically.

FMI: https://flytenow.com, https://airpooler.com