Flightsharing website closes due to court ruling
No Ubers in the sky for any of us.
DC's Court of Appeals has decided to uphold the FAA's ban on flightsharing websites, forcing Flytenow to shut down indefinitely. If you recall, the FAA announced last year that it's not cool with services that connect amateur pilots that have no commercial licenses with passengers willing to pay for flights. One of those Uber-in-the-sky services called Flytenow asked the court to overturn the FAA's ban, but it has obviously failed to sway the judge in its favor.
According to the FAA's rules, private pilots with no commercial licenses are allowed to take on passengers, but they can only split the costs for a flight. They also can't advertise for passengers on services like Flytenow -- they can only take friends, or maybe spread the news by word-of-mouth and via a more private means online.
In the company's farewell blog post, it said:
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.
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.
The company says its legal team is looking into introducing a bill in Congress in an effort to change the rules altogether. For now, however, Flytenow remains grounded.
