

Missed Approach: FAA Says Flytenow Go-around (YC S14) - voska
http://blog.flytenow.com/missed-approach-faa-says-flytenow-go-around

======
infinotize
When I heard about Flytenow, as I private pilot I could not believe they were
attempting to set up a ride share market with _private_ pilots. It is so
blatantly condradictory to the spirit of the law and the common understanding
of the rule among aviators, and I would certainly not want to be the lawyer
trying to prove it met some obtuse letter of the law.

The bulletin board justification is also ridiculous; GA airports are out of
the way and the average person does not make a trip out to see who might be
flying where. How could they not have seen this coming?

Flytenow would have been much better served to encourage a more streamlined
process for commercial pilots to ride share and navigate any applicable FARs
be it part 135 or other. There is certainly an opportunity, not quite on Uber-
terms, but there are plenty of pilots with commercial or near commercial doing
crappy CFI (instruction) jobs and building time for an airline transport
certificate. They will certainly welcome any new revenue or time-building
scheme.

The relevant FAR regarding private pilots is here: [http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-
bin/retrieveECFR?gp=&r=PART&n=14y2.0...](http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-
bin/retrieveECFR?gp=&r=PART&n=14y2.0.1.1.2#se14.2.61_1113)

~~~
cusineros
You Sir, are not a pilot, any pilot understand the law, and the FAA is very
wrong on the ruling because that ruling actually makes illegal any cost
sharing. so if you were a pilot you could not share your gas expense with any
passenger even friends or family.

------
nlh
I applaud these guys for attempting what is basically the Lyft/UberX model --
comply to the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law (i.e. Lyft's
original "you're not paying your driver, you're making a donation"), though
it's debatable if they're even trying to do that.

BUT! And there's a big but...

Lyft & Uber were/are disrupting a system that heavily regulated/legislated,
some would argue unnecessarily, has false barriers to entry, is inefficient,
and is essentially an oligopoly. And their entry is lowering prices, making
the market more efficient, and making consumer super-happy.

I don't think private aviation is suffering the same ailment. If anything, the
airlines are operating below cost because of heavy heavy competition. The FAA
licenses private pilots not because they can or they want to charge fees, but
because they need to make sure that they're not flying around killing
themselves (and despite that regulation, they still are doing that).

So Flytenow's approach here feels more like they found a regulated market they
feel like disrupting because they can vs. actually making an inefficient
market more efficient and better for consumers.

In summary: Whereas I'm happy to take a ride with random stranger in their
Lyft/UberX car, where I'll get a cheaper and generally better-than-Taxi
experience, I'm not in any sort of rush to join a random private pilot who has
not been commercially-certified by the FAA in his aircraft that isn't designed
for commercial passenger transport.

Now - that all being said - that doesn't mean that Flytenow should die! There
is indeed an opportunity here, and with the right safety checks and approvals,
there could be a market for P2P flights. But this should be done with the FAA,
not in spite of it.

~~~
fred_durst
Right, but thanks to Uber et al and their complete and flaunting disregard for
regulations, regulators are now getting hyper aggressive in return. In the
past the slow movement of regulations had a lot to do with regulators taking
the time to get input from all parties(see FCC and Net Neutrality) before
jumping to a decision. But now they know that waiting a year or two to make a
decision could render their decision useless so they are forced to make quick
barely informed judgements. Which end up basically saying no to everyone.

~~~
anigbrowl
An eloquent summary.

------
drivingmenuts
From the Flytenow TOS:

"Flytenow receives an administrative fee of $30 (the “Bulletin Board Fee”) per
Enthusiast for each flight."

Interjecting a third party into the agreement is the point at which it starts
being a business and not a gentleman's agreement or whatever it should have
been.

A bulletin board in an FOB doesn't count because the bulletin board, nor the
provider of the board, doesn't make any money off someone putting up a 3x5
card or piece of paper. The bulletin board doesn't actually give a damn about
whether anyone accepts the offer or the request, whether money changes hands
or not, etc.

I could probably put up an electronic bulletin board for pilots and
enthusiasts as long as I had no interest in the offers of, or requests for,
flights. I could possibly even charge a yearly or monthly fee for it, as long
as it was for access, not about the flights. (I'm guessing on that last bit -
the FAA would probably give me squinty looks for a while until they were
satisfied I wasn't charging for flights).

But Flytenow had to go putting a per-ride fee on things and that's the moment
it because a business transaction.

Their TOS is here: [https://flytenow.com/terms](https://flytenow.com/terms)

\---

Really and honestly, without ever having been involved, I'm thinking the
existing system of informal agreements and bulletin boards, etc. is way
preferable to dealing with Flytenow. They're adding a middleman where no
middleman was really needed, except maybe a neighbor who knows a guy who has a
plane.

~~~
anigbrowl
As someone said the other day, why own and run down your own fleet when you
can borrow someone else's Sounds like Flytenow is aiming to be the first
airline that doesn't have any planes.

------
tmuir
This seems fairly straightforward, but I am not a lawyer.

The common carriage rule says a private pilot can't offer to fly people around
for money. The exception to this rule is if the money is only defraying the
cost of the flight.

The fact that Flytenow charges a fee for connecting pilot and passenger
appears to put the system outside of the exception to the rule. The fee does
not defray the cost of the flight.

~~~
Guichard
Flytenow's fee is irrelevant because the rules apply to a pilot, not a
company. It's the pilot who can't receive compensation. For example, the
outcome (according to the FAA) would be exactly the same whether or not a fee
is charged by the company.

------
drewvolpe
Flytenow implies the FAA is responding to them, but if you read the letter,
this response is actually to a request from one of their competitors,
AirPooler.

~~~
voska
They referenced AirPooler's interpretation in our response.
[http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/agc...](http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/agc/pol_adjudication/agc200/Interpretations/data/interps/2014/Winton-
AviationLawFirm%20-%20\(2014\)%20Legal%20Interpretation.pdf)

------
mikeash
I'm getting kind of tired of these startups who think they can bypass the
rules by just holding their hands over their ears and shouting "LA LA LA THE
RULES DO NOT APPLY TO ME LA LA LA."

The blog post goes into extensive detail about how their service doesn't
involve soliciting rides for compensation and it falls on the expense sharing
side of things and on and on. Then I visit their home page and I'm greeted by
this:

"Go round trip from Boston to Martha's Vineyard for about $120 per person or
from Palo Alto to Monterey Bay for about $100 per person."

Plain as day, that's advertising trips for money.

What really irks me in this case is that the requirements for carrying
passengers for hire aren't all that tough to meet. You need a commercial
pilot's license, a requirement that should be fairly obvious. It's not all
_that_ hard to get one. You need some more training and have to fly to higher
standards and know more stuff, but it's not particularly tough. The equipment
is also held to higher standards, which mostly comes down to getting it
inspected more often. This is not like, say, Uber and New York City, where you
have to spend a million bucks on a taxi medallion or they'll shut you down.
You merely have to meet some fairly basic requirements before you carry
passengers for hire to ensure a basic level of competence.

The law is not a computer program. You can't exploit a judge by saying,
"Please repeat the following 64kB of data back to me: empty." If it looks like
you're advertising services for hire and it acts like you're advertising
services for hire, you're advertising services for hire.

~~~
cge
It's amazing that Flytenow seems to think the FAA's position doesn't "answer
... questions" or is arbitrary.

The FAA's position seems quite clear and based on reasonable ideas, even from
the letters Flytenow links to and then seems to wilfully misinterpret. Private
pilots can't be compensated for flights. The _exception_ is that, if the pilot
and passengers have a _common purpose_ , which doesn't seem to be "oh, we
happen to want to go to the same city," then they can share expenses. Thus, if
a pilot and some of her friends are sitting around and say "hey, it would be
great to go see X," they can pool their money to do so. Nothing the FAA seems
to say officially suggests that advertising for random strangers to go on a
flight is acceptable, and quite a few articles Flytenow links to seem directly
contradicted by the FAA's letters. It's not clear that posting on airport
bulletin boards was ever really acceptable, but may have been disregarded in
that it only really advertised to other pilots, with a clearer understanding
of the risks.

These rules are based on far more vital safety issues than taxis, and, as you
point out, the rules around carrying paying passengers are reasonable, unlike
taxis. Uber and Lyft can at least argue that they are fighting an unfair
system. Flytenow can't.

For that matter, their response, keeping the platform up but removing expense-
sharing, seems blatantly in contempt of the letter, and it seems certain that
they'll be punished, harshly. What possible reason would there be for a site
where pilots can find "non-paying" passengers to tag along with them on
flights, significantly increasing their own costs, unless the expectation is
that pilots will use the site to find passengers who will pay under the table?

~~~
Guichard
The entire ruling was about compensation. Additionally, neither the Federal
Aviation Regulations nor the FAA has ever recognized any distinction between
friends or strangers, i.e., a prior existing relationship has no bearing on
common purpose. Otherwise, how could you decide if common purpose exists? Is
there a secret handshake? One conversation, two conversations? Maybe, just
asking: can we be friends so we can fly together? That's a slippery slope.

~~~
hatandsocks
> The entire ruling was about compensation.

Right, and, plain as day, _private_ pilots cannot fly people around for money.
That's the baseline. You can't accept money in exchange for flying an airplane
unless you hold a commercial or ATP certificate.

The FAA carved out an exception that allows pilots to share operating costs
with passengers _IF_ the pilot and passengers share a common purpose for the
flight _AND_ the pilot isn't advertizing the flight to the public or some
subset of the public ("holding out"). I'll grant you there isn't a sharp,
black line that divides when a private pilot is and is not breaking the cost
sharing rule, but Flytenow is _clearly_ outside the grey zone (or, pilots who
use Flytenow are).

------
golemotron
The thing that isn't clear to me is whether the FAA has any kind of authority
over Flytenow. Technically, doesn't their authority extend only to the pilots
who use the service?

------
jackgavigan
I find the whole "Regulators are bad!" attitude/narrative tiresome. Regulators
are responsible for protecting the interests of the public. They might
sometimes be slow to adapt to advances in technology and changes in the
market, but I'd rather they erred on the side of caution.

If financial regulators had been a bit less accommodating towards "innovative"
products and business models, we might all be a bit better off.

------
jrochkind1
I would really like to read a legal memo from an administrative law attorney
instead of this sort of amateur law enthusiast argument for a certain
position. I am not at all familiar with the relevant law/regulations, but the
style and content of the OP leaves me still not sure I got an education.

------
lnanek2
I wish them the best of luck, but I don't really buy their claim that a flight
they are publicly listing and charging a fee for is private cost sharing.

------
ellisonf9
I think the Flytenow founders are extremely ambitious for attempting to tackle
such a beast. Keep at it! Relentlessly Resrouceful.

------
fred_durst
We're finally getting the over the top push back that all those maybe legal
startups kept asking for.

This is what happens when you keep poking someone(the regulators) with a
stick. Eventually your credibility drops to near zero and everyone coming in
behind you, with possibly much more reasonable ideas, will now be associated
with your crap and pays the price.

Thanks Uber & Airbnb. Thanks a lot.

~~~
Silhouette
It's not as if this is a new idea: look at Google and Facebook.

It just seems to be a different take on the usual VC funding strategy: The
startup and its investors take a risk, and they are essentially banking on
either getting big enough to secure their position effectively or receiving a
good exit offer from someone bigger, before they fail.

I don't like a lot of the corners some startups cut, and the kind of thing I
read on HN every day does make me wary of trusting any startup enough to
become a customer. Then again, some of those startups have become a lot more
successful than any of my businesses, so clearly for better or worse society
as a whole tolerates the envelope-pushing model at least up to a point where
it's worthwhile to have tried.

~~~
fred_durst
The concern I'm trying to relay here is that at this point no regulator wants
to be seen as asleep at the wheel while the next Uber / Airbnb grows to become
an 800 pound gorilla. It's all over the news. It's everywhere. So now we are
starting to see regulators jump on startups early and hard(see the local SF
regulators). In the past regulators would typically get in hot water for
saying yes to things they maybe should not have. Now they can get in trouble
for both yes and undecided. So now it is turning into, "Is this a startup?
Then no". With a hard fast "no" the startup will wilt and die and the
regulator will never end up in hot water because everyone will just forget
about it. And we have Uber & Airbnb to thank for that. All I can hope is that
their investors, founders and vested employees give back to the startup
community generously to try and make up for the damage they've done.

