from Hacker News

“We are left with no choice but to shut down Flytenow”

by voska on 12/22/15, 7:07 PM with 105 comments

  • by Animats on 12/22/15, 7:57 PM

    They're shutting down. Good.

    They weren't "innovating". They were trying to run an air taxi service without meeting the pilot training requirements and aircraft equipment safety requirements for carrying passengers. Private pilots should not be carrying passengers for money - the accident rates at the low end of general aviation are too high.

    (Never go flying to a destination with someone who isn't IFR qualified. The weather can always change.)

    This was on YC a few days ago, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10769333

  • by abduhl on 12/22/15, 8:06 PM

    In the Opinion of the Court, Judge Pillard held that pilots sharing expenses on Flytenow were engaged in common carriage, making them the only common carriers (i.e., commercial airliners) in history to not seek a profit.

    Profit seeking is not a requirement to be considered a common carrier. The FAA and the Court are quite clear in that all that is required for a common carrier classification is "(1) a holding out of a willingness to (2) transport persons or property (3) from place to place (4) for compensation" and that all four are satisfied by Flytenow. Posting an itinerary to the website qualifies as holding out, the flight is transportation, the individuals go from place to place, and the cost sharing is compensation. Flytenow's response to this is just needling and attempting to spin.

    The current state of the law is extremely deferential to regulatory actions, at the expense of innovation. The Court relied on that regulatory deference, and the result is less choice for consumers, and less innovation in general aviation.

    This is true. And it's for good reason. Flying is dangerous and should not be subject to the race to the bottom and rent-seeking behavior that is the "sharing economy".

  • by gscott on 12/22/15, 7:45 PM

    Ride sharing in aviation is perfectly legal, the FAA isn't interested in the commercialization of ride sharing in aviation. However there have been websites offering that for many years, none are popular. Whoever thought of suing the FAA for something that is already legal... probably listening to an investor who didn't want to invest unless if it was given the FAA seal of approval...

    http://www.risingup.com/fars/info/part61-113-FAR.shtml Sec. 61.113(1)(c)

    This is a good article on this http://speednews.com/article/6966 (2011) essentially two people have to be intending to go to the same destination, the passenger can only pay half the costs and the pilot has to pay the other half since he/she is going to the same destination anyway.

  • by sssilver on 12/22/15, 7:44 PM

    Wow I never knew such a thing existed. I wish I could sign up, this is amazing!

  • by pj_mukh on 12/22/15, 8:20 PM

    Customary, I'm probably going to get downvoted for this but..

    What part of there being a "transaction" makes the flight inherently unsafe? Does a "transaction" imply that the private pilot will be flying more to make money, therefore be less safe? If that's the case shouldn't there just be a limitation on the number of flights private pilots can do?

    Are private pilots not supposed to take passengers with them? If that's the case, maybe there can be additional safety/certification requirements imposed for private pilots (without requiring them needing to learn all the ins and outs of commercial 747 flights).

    A blanket ban just because there is money involved seems silly.

  • by grizzles on 12/22/15, 8:14 PM

    What about in other countries? It's perplexing to me why the green lobby isn't up in arms about hostility to Uber et al.

    Services like Uberhop save energy, reduce traffic, pollution, cost. There are no downsides.

  • by seangrant on 12/22/15, 7:50 PM

    Back when I ran a consulting/web dev biz I had a client who came to me with an idea like this. I didn't like the sounds of it and didn't pursue it. Glad I didn't. There's a myriad of technical legal issues to go through. Uber ("rideshare") vs taxis are majorly different from Flytenow ("flightshare") vs commercial airlines.

    The FAA will never allow "flightsharing" on the commercialism that Uber is at. It's simply too dangerous.

  • by sbierwagen on 12/22/15, 8:12 PM

  • by jlgaddis on 12/22/15, 8:06 PM

    Did Flytenow ever even "make it off the ground"? Was there ever a single flight? I'm not sure that there was.

  • by elmar on 12/23/15, 9:46 AM

    Other sites offering the same service for more than 5 years on USA that now have to shutdown:

    http://www.skypool.com/ (Since 1999- 16 years) http://www.pilotsharetheride.com/

  • by draw_down on 12/22/15, 8:14 PM

    Ohhh, that mean old grinch Mr. Government. Always telling entrepreneurs their dumb ideas are dumb.

  • by FussyZeus on 12/22/15, 7:50 PM

    Consenting people, using private property in compliance with the law. Why exactly is this banned, other than it cutting into the pocketbooks of carriers?