
FlightCar shuts down - cgoodmac
http://farewell.flightcar.com
======
corywatilo
Good riddance.

They tried to reboot a few months back but the damage had already been done.
The people who really wanted this sort of business to succeed (including
myself) had already tried to embrace them, but got burned too much in the past
to risk giving them another shot. My guess is the only potential market going
forward were people who randomly came across FlightCar when searching for
rental cars. My money is on this being an acquihire. The business failed.

(I previously wrote an open letter to FlightCar, based on my personal
experiences, which also summed up the general consensus amongst everyone who
had tried it in the past: [http://watilo.com/open-letter-to-
flightcar](http://watilo.com/open-letter-to-flightcar))

~~~
ithinkinstereo
What do you find particularly terrible about renting from one of the major
agencies?

I travel frequently for work and rent across all the major rental agencies
(Hertz, Avis, National) and their discount subsidiaries (Thrifty, Budget,
Alamo). These days the process is super smooth.

If you register with the agency's free rewards program, the process is
usually:

1) Bypass counter to the rewards members area 2) Pick up pre-assigned car or
choose your own from the designated pickup areas 3) Drive to exit, show
drivers ID, and leave.

When returning, most agencies allow you to just drop it off and get your
receipt delivered via email.

I've tried flightcar a few times and have no complaints about the experience
itself - it just wasn't any better than going with a major agency, with more
downsides: 1) weirder off-airport location (makes returning more difficult -
vast majority of airports have clear signs for car rental dropoffs that are
super easy to follow) 2) not as consistent in terms of car quality (major
agencies standardize their lineups across a few models and years) and
maintenance - harder to change/swap cars 3) not as good support (stuck
somewhere in random CT, hertz locations everywhere, flightcar = BOS)

~~~
FireBeyond
Renting from Enterprise in Anchorage (who were pissed that I had been picked
up from the airport and taken to a 'near downtown' branch - clearly for
locals, because the rental rates were also half the price of the airport
branch)...

When I said I wanted to waive the "optional" (to the extent that even their
own printed paperwork said "not required to rent the vehicle") waivers and
reduced/no deductibles (because between my fire/EMS vehicle insurance and
credit cards, all their harbingers of doom about how I might not actually be
covered weren't applicable), they outright refused.

"No, to reduce fraud if you want to waive our insurance, you actually have to
open a claim with your insurer so we know that it will be covered"... Uhh???
Apropos of how nonsensical this is, isn't "opening an insurance claim without
an incident sounds kinda ... fraudulent ... to me". "Sorry sir, policy."

Whatever, needed a vehicle, paid the extra, came back the next day to speak to
the manager. CSR who was there the day before butted in, "Oh, no sir, you must
have misunderstood me!". Outright lies. I was so tempted to send my girlfriend
in later to try to catch them out again.

But most of the time, fairly painless. But when not so, then very painful.

~~~
Kadin
Enterprise is the most terrible of the major agencies. Hertz and Avis are
pretty decent to work with. National is "meh".

I used to do a lot of business travel (40+ wks/year in some cases) and rented
exclusively with Hertz or Avis. Never really had much in the way of a problem
with them.

~~~
wyclif
I agree Hertz is pretty good. And they're good across countries. At Ben Gurion
in Israel they couldn't be smoother, just like they are in the States. Great
customer service.

~~~
jasonlaramburu
Hertz quietly introduced a nationwide rule change this year. Now if you
decline their fuel service (which is generally way above market price), you
have to bring a copy of your receipt from the gas station. Otherwise they
charge you for a full tank of gas!

------
robg
Surprised no one has mentioned how the cards were stacked against them from a
bureaucratic level. I understand the airport authorities help run their
operations from what they get from rental car fees. But Flightcar was clearly
treated in an heavy handed way by different municipalities. That's very
difficult to overcome.

I only used them at SFO and the rules kept changing underneath them. They had
to change locations multiple times and went from curbside service to being
treated as an off-airport vendor. It's all the bloat and corruption of the
taxi industry PLUS local municipalities getting their cut and fighting to keep
it. That was going to be a very difficult terrain to overcome even if the
customer service was perfect.

Overall, I was probably typical. When I could avoid the airtrain with their
blackcar I was willing to put up with the off-airport location. As soon as I
had to take the airtrain to the rental car facility and then hop in the
blackcar, the modestly lower prices with more variable car quality was no
longer worth it. Curbside pickup made a lot of sense. Until the SFO authority
regulated it toward their own bloated interests.

~~~
josho
> all the bloat and corruption of the taxi industry PLUS local municipalities
> getting their cut

Isn't that simply capitalism? An analog: iPhones default to google for web
searches because google paid Apple $1b to keep it the default. Yet we
typically don't call this bloat or corruption.

Hertz (or whoever it is these days) is the closest car rental at every airport
because they pay the airport the most for this scarce resource.

Yes, this makes it difficult for new entrants into the marketplace. But, don't
blame corruption, blame capitalism for everyone maximizing their own profits.
Oh, and to bring this back to startups. What is Hertz/Taxi unfair competitive
advantage? Multi-year agreements with each airport to give them closest access
for airport passenger pickup. That is what Flightier had to overcome, it seems
they struggled overcoming their competitors lock-in with the airports.

------
colmvp
"We thank all of our customers for being a part of our journey, and we look
forward to a new future."

There it is.

[https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

~~~
asdfologist
That blog looks straight out of 1995.

~~~
Dylan16807
It's a series of images. It needs to be easy to use and not slow. It doesn't
need to be trendy.

------
rdl
Flightcar failed, but was it fundamental to the market, or just this specific
company?

I wonder if there's a successful business to be done in this space. I'm not
convinced the fundamental economics work -- most business travelers value
convenience and lack of failure (and are responsible for most high-margin,
low-hassle rentals); families or individual non-business <25yo, etc. are more
likely to heavily use and thus damage a car.

It also seems a bit crazy to rent out a personal car unless you don't
particularly care about that car, or are very confident the rental agency can
detect and fix any problems. Generally, even with great maintenance, ex-rental
cars do not do great on resale compared to single-driver cars.

This would work great for 100% self-driving cars, but there's no particular
reason for individuals to own and rent out the self driving cars -- those
could just be owned by a fleet provider who can borrow at 0-2%.

~~~
hyh1048576
I do believe it's the specific company. They treated customers too poorly.
Just take a look at Yelp to see many angry reviews. (If I remember correctly
it's 2.5 stars average, and it seems like Yelp actually hid some bad reviews
which are not spam)

I personally wanted it to be successful and put my brand new car there for a
month. The mileage goes from 3,600 to 5,500 and I got $194 in return. I was
happy about that and gave a good review on Yelp. However later experience was
a horrible, horrible nightmare, they are just being irresponsible from time to
time. And they didn't just do that to me, they did it to everyone. Eww.

~~~
ceejayoz
The IRS deems a mile worth 57.5 cents in depreciation.

That's $1,100 dollars, for which you got paid $194. How is this at all
worthwhile?

~~~
thedrbrian
That's insane. For less than a months payment someone could of thrashed the
car.

------
jlukecarlson
I used FlightCar for the first time literally last night. I signed up right
before I boarded and getting to the FlightCar location ended up being decently
convoluted but I did get a pretty nice Mazda for the weekend. This morning I
received a 'Welcome to FlightCar' email and two hours later a follow up
'Update from FlightCar' thanking me for being a loyal customer and letting me
know that they are shutting down

------
rgbrgb
I used Relay Rides in SF a few times for super low budget rentals
($20-35/day). It worked really well there and pickup was probably less of a
hassle than it would have been to go to the airport. Looks like there's been a
rebrand: [https://turo.com/](https://turo.com/)

------
ocdtrekkie
The "also today" choice of wording is odd. Generally this seems like a
straight acquihire, startup gaining attention to get bought by a bigger
company and exit operations. But the Forbes article
([http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2016/07/14/flightca...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2016/07/14/flightcar-
to-shut-down-sell-technology-to-mercedes-benz/#3ce7c3c83f3a)) makes it sound
like it's a business that's been failing.

So I guess the question is: Shutting down because it was acquired, or selling
off value because it's shutting down? I guess the answer lies in how much
FlightCar was sold for.

~~~
dawhizkid
It's not an acquihire. Sounds like MB bought their code in a fire sale once
they alreaded decided to shut down.

------
mchannon
I'm sad to see them go. Used them near exclusively for my past 2 dozen trips
(about a dozen SFO, about a dozen OAK).

The rental car experience in general is ripe for disruption- flightcar was not
perfect but the incumbents were and are just atrocious, from surly, conniving
employees every step of the way to miserable shuttle/train rides to out-of-
the-way and monopoly-priced oceans of asphalt.

If FC ran out of room for cars, they could always have charged a discounted
rate for parking instead of offering it for free.

I guess I'll give Turo a try next time.

------
brianbreslin
With all this discussion on car rental options. I'm surprised no one has
mentioned SilverCar. Has anyone used them? The airport rental business is
indeed one that needs major overhaul. If any of you are curious, there are
some fascinating case studies out there on enterprise and how they succeeded
by avoiding the airports.

------
avindroth
Hopefully another company in the near future is founded in the same name to
deliver the promises of its title.

------
Hydraulix989
Not surprising, they were competing against Uber.

So many people listed their cars on FlightCar's monthly parking plan (park
long-term for free at their lot near SFO, and occasionally they'll rent your
car out) to avoid paying SF parking costs (~$400/month) that they had to force
everybody to get their cars out of their "salvage yard."

When I arrived at FlightCar HQ, I saw a lot full of unused cars the day I
showed up to pick up my car once and for all. Everyone just abused the system.

It was a pretty sweet deal for a while:

I was profiting off my car while parking it for free for over a year in San
Francisco.

~~~
kylec
How is that abuse? Having lots of cars to rent out seems like the exact thing
they would have wanted.

~~~
Hydraulix989
Marketplace concepts are hard because you need the supply side and the demand
side to be balanced.

