EuroFlyer wrote:
How can you say that [wingly is dishonnest]? They are working with the German authorities, and are far from operating in a grey zone.
The only issue there might be, is that because of the ‘instutionalized’ possibility of cost sharing, a pilot might be incentivised to conduct a flight he otherwise wouldn’t. And, second possible issue, that there’s a shadow air transport industry growing slowly, making the life of professional air transport operators hard.
I completely agree with the two issues you consider. They must be fought. Flight sharing should be limited to flights that a pilot would conduct for himself (herself) without passengers, and exclude flights conducted only for passengers, whereas the pilot had no prior intention to fly them. Uberizing the sky would be a catastrophy for professionnal pilots and flight sharing would be re-regulated, probably completely forbidden, if something bad happened in such circumstances.
As to wingly : 10 people work full time for them, meaning a necessary turnover of around 1M€ a year (I quote a number taken in a previous post, with which I agree). It was said earlier in this thread that they charge 15% + 5€ per flight. If we consider that they earn an average 50€ per flight, they need 20.000 shared flights a year to meet their objectives. That’s around 55 shared flights every single day of the year, including fall, winter, workdays etc…. There simply isn’t such a number of shared flights available in the French, German and British skies. And it would be the same thing if all of Europe was included.
Therefore their aim is not to promote flight sharing, but to sell as many ads as possible, even if these ads are nothing but blind calls which in almost all cases noone will listen to.
Unlike wingly and similar sites, aerostop costs me nothing. Really nothing. Even the web hosting is free. Therefore I don’t loose money even when there is no ad at all, and I wouldn’t earn anything if 1000 ads were added every day. I don’t have to sell anything. I don’t have to falsely tease people to attract them (Quote wingly : “find the pilot for the trip of your dream…”). I can inform them correctly and let them make their own mind.
To answer the remark by ultranomad : before the 2016 shutdown, one trip out of 4 which were advertised on aerostop were “international” flights.
@TThiery you are spreading a lot of wrong information out of fury over the failure of your competing web site.
Flight sharing should be limited to flights that a pilot would conduct for himself (herself) without passengers, and exclude flights conducted only for passengers, whereas the pilot had no prior intention to fly them.
Amen. I beg to disagree. So does the EU, so does EASA, so does the French constitutional court. The law has changed and it doesn’t care about how you feel it should be. The legal situation is crystal clear and apart from implementation difficulties (DGAC needing a kick from an entity that puts the law over administrative despotism), it is a fact we all have to accept and live by.
You are advocating that flight sharing should not be a means to increase the number of GA flights. That is 100% the opposite of the rationale behind the law. It is an endeavour to breathe life into low end GA. EASA have a mandate to promote GA and keep it viable, they have even appointed an excellent head of GA.
Uberizing the sky would be a catastrophy for professionnal pilots and flight sharing would be re-regulated, probably completely forbidden, if something bad happened in such circumstances.
You keep repeating this wrong claim. Uber is drivers working for profit. The Uber ride fee covers all costs of the ride plus a compensation for the driver. That is entirely different. Do you really believe the 500 Wingly flights at 50 GBP from the UK to Le Touquet in C172 etc. will replace even a single 5000 GBP AOC flight in a King Air of which there probably is maybe just one in a year? Well even if it does, those 500 little flights add a lot more value to GA than that one AOC flight I’d say.
There simply isn’t such a number of shared flights available in the French, German and British skies. And it would be the same thing if all of Europe was included.
I am sure you have extensive research to back up this claim? When Apple released the iPhone, there was a worldwide demand for 100,000 screen only smartphones. Stupid of them to invest so much for an obviously small market. Too late now to correct the mistake…
Therefore their aim is not to promote flight sharing, but to sell as many ads as possible, even if these ads are nothing but blind calls which in almost all cases noone will listen to.
Where does Wingly sell ads? Where do they sell anything than cost share flights? Where is their secret business instead if their cost sharing offer is obviously a charade as you imply?
Unlike wingly and similar sites, aerostop costs me nothing. Really nothing. Even the web hosting is free
And yet people don’t seem to like it but prefer Wingly. Strange world…
TThierry wrote:
They must be fought. Flight sharing should be limited to flights that a pilot would conduct for himself (herself) without passengers, and exclude flights conducted only for passengers, whereas the pilot had no prior intention to fly them.
No.
Flight sharing should be limited – and is limited – to cost sharing flights rather than flights where the pilot makes a profit. Period. What is the problem with any other matching of pilots and people wanting to go somewhere?
If some friends ask me (like they did last weekend) if we can do a trip together to Zell am See for skiing this year, why would this be a problem? Of course we are going – if the WX and all other conditions are ok on the picked date, obviously.
Similarly, if I browse through the requests on Wingly and find a flight request that I like (say: Fly to Zell am See for skiing), why would this be a problem? I like to be inspired by other peoples’ ideas. This has no impact whatsoever on flight safety.
TThierry wrote:
Uberizing the sky would be a catastrophy
Can we please stop mixing cost sharing (for cars and flights likewise) and private taxi services?
The analogy to flight sharing sites is ride sharing sites like blablacar etc. It does NOT compare to private taxi services like Uber, where drivers are driving for a profit – regardless of who initiates a ride or flight request.
.TThierry wrote:
Therefore their aim is not to promote flight sharing, but to sell as many ads as possible
Can you elaborate exactly how Wingly’s aim is to sell ads? To whom? I don’t understand.
TThierry wrote:
Unlike wingly and similar sites, aerostop costs me nothing. Really nothing. Even the web hosting is free. Therefore I don’t loose money even when there is no ad at all, and I wouldn’t earn anything if 1000 ads were added every day. I don’t have to sell anything. I don’t have to falsely tease people to attract them (Quote wingly : “find the pilot for the trip of your dream…”). I can inform them correctly and let them make their own mind.
I symphathize with you running aerostop – we exchanged some ideas a few years back when there weren’t any commercial platforms yet. But I do think that Wingly is doing it right – the only way to create a successful sharing platform is by scaling it up. Sharing platforms can never be really successful if only used by a few people. And to scale up, you simply need marketing and you need a little bit more involvement than “it costs me nothing and if nobody uses it, I don’t care”. And to do proper marketing, you have to invest money and to invest money, you have to earn money.
Regarding their marketing claims: What’s wrong with conveying some passion for flying? I still find most of the trips that I do are the “trips of my dreams” and many, especially first-time, passengers are absolutely enchanted and I’m sure for many it’s a trip of their dreams, in a way. Of course, it’s an emotional statement and it’s a marketing claim and it’s trying to be catchy and all and it may not appeal to everyone – but it’s much less “dishonest” and “false” than many other companies’ ridiculous advertising claims.
achimha wrote:
Amen. I beg to disagree.
Ok. Then we don’t have the same philosophy and indeed, what you advocate is nothing less than public transportation made by private pilots in SEP aircraft, whereas we (private pilots) are not qualified enough, not trained enough, and fly in aircraft which are not maintained at a level similar to public transportation and airlines companies’. Moreover, transport companies pay taxes, pay salaries, and we don’t. The flight sharing which you advocate is an unfair competition for them.
The “lame” (so you said) moral and ethical side of the problem I was refering to earlier.
Patrick wrote:
Sharing platforms can never be really successful if only used by a few people. And to scale up, you simply need marketing and you need a little bit more involvement than “it costs me nothing and if nobody uses it, I don’t care”. And to do proper marketing, you have to invest money and to invest money, you have to earn money.
That’s the problem in my opinion. Wingly and similar sites change the nature of flight sharing because they turn it into a business.
Ok. Then we don’t have the same philosophy and indeed, what you advocate is nothing less than public transportation made by private pilots in SEP aircraft, whereas we (private pilots) are not qualified enough, not trained enough, and fly in aircraft which are not maintained at a level similar to public transportation and airlines companies’. Moreover, transport companies pay taxes, pay salaries, and we don’t. The flight sharing which you advocate is an unfair competition for them.
It looks like you don’t understand the cost sharing part. Why should I pay taxes and salaries if i make NO PROFIT and simply share the cost. Do you use the same arguments when you decide to drive to some place and agree to share the cost with a friend? Would you pay taxes on that? And i bet that Wingly pays taxes for their income.
It is also no “competition”, because somebody who really HAS to go some place for work will not use flight sharing but either take the airline or charter a professional plane.
TThierry wrote:
They must be fought.
No, they must not, at least not by anything like a law. The only thing which is necessary is for wingly to proactively address those concerns wisely. Which they are planning to do, anyway. They know exactly that the more the platform grows, the more caution they have to apply when it comes to the individual skills of the pilots performing / offering the flights. They’re having exactly this conversation here every month in the team, with their investors, and they do have a constant and positive contact with the regulator.
That’s why I said: talk to them, and understand how they operate. They aren’t operating like Uber. They have a completely different business model, so don’t produce ‘fake news’…
As a general remark: it helps GA if pilots fly airplanes, and tt doesn’t help GA if pilots don’t.
If, through wingly, more pilots fly more often, it helps GA because it makes them safer and more experienced. The issues I mentioned both need, and can, be addressed.
TThierry wrote:
what you advocate is nothing less than public transportation made by private pilots in SEP aircraft
So if I drive in my car from Berlin to Hamburg and find 1 or 2 blokes on blablacar who join and contribute to the fuel expense, that’s public transportation? Strangely, I do not need a taxi license for that. How come?
Your argumentation towards making Wingly look like public transportation because the platform operators are earning money (not the pilots!) is flawed.
There is private and commercial sellers on ebay. That has nothing to do with the operators of the ebay platform getting filthly rich with it through transaction commissions or not.
This can’t be fought now. It is EU law.
The only avenue, for those who object, left will be to restrict it sporadically e.g.
The first four is just standard everyday GA airfield politics which every aircraft owner will know from experience 
Plenty of old threads here…
Of course all of the above are on shakey moral ground – it’s a bit like the DGAC a national CAA arguing, without actually saying so in those words, that the pilots licensed by it are not capable of flying safely, or the aeroclub scene which it presides over is too dangerous for coping with the new incentive introduced by cost recovery … etc. They may have a point but that ship has now sailed.
I am surprised that the EU reg permitting this did not insist on the pilot paying his equal share. That is how the UK cost sharing regs were since for ever. There was a work-around which enabled full cost recovery (put the plane into a company, get the company to charge you, the pilot, an inflated hourly rate, and you cost share that rate, and draw the profit out of the company as a salary… this had to be legal otherwise a paid employee of a flying school could never rent one of their planes and cost share it) but now you can get 100% cost recovery legally, so you can get totally free flying. Well, totally free flying if you are a renter, or 100% marginal cost recovery if you are an owner.
EuroFlyer wrote:
As a general remark: it helps GA if pilots fly airplanes, and tt doesn’t help GA if pilots don’t.
If, through wingly, more pilots fly more often, it helps GA because it makes them safer and more experienced. The issues I mentioned both need, and can, be addressed.
This is tremendously important. In today’s European GA, the lack of current experience impairs flight safety to a much greater degree than the lack of pilot’s judgment, especially among those who already hold a CPL or IR. Thus, the net effect of Wingly on safety is clearly positive.
Well it looks like I’m in a minority of one here…
I won’t argue any further. Good flights to everyone…
