I am flying to Salzburg in the middle of September in a Piper Seneca and I am currently alone on board so I decided to ask all people from my contacts list who might be interested in taking a flight to join. I wrote to about 60 people that there is an option for a flight and I got zero positive response, i.e. nobody interested.
I’ve had similar experiences with local flights as well – practically nobody seems to be interested in joining for a flight. There are some exceptions but they just confirm the rule.
Whenever I go flying with somebody, I always pay at least as much as the passengers (without counting annual club fees for membership and discounted flight price which I of course always cover myself), so the prices are much lower than e.g. a sightseeing flight would usually be. There have been multiple cases when I paid the whole flight. So I don’t think the price is the problem.
I know some people are afraid to climb into a small airplane but is that the main reason? What is your experience?
Same experience, Vladimir. That is one of the reasons, I decided to go for a much less expensive two-seater as my own aircraft. I can rent a four-seater, if need be, which was rarely the case so far.
It is indeed quite hard.
It could be other pilots which may make it simpler. You could share legs
otherwise amongst friends is not always the best place. At work some people show interest and I have offered to bring them with me.
I just have to find the time to do that now (and it will obviously be very local)
I consider it worth it in case some of them then go on to become pilots (not seen it so far 
) and I am always happy to share my passion.
Besides my family (they are always ready to join if they can) I have few friends who sometimes join but nobody offers to participate in any cost nor I ask. Owning the aircraft, it’s assumed that I can cover all the costs including lunch at destination if it’s one day trip. But generally I would say that nobody is much interested in flying.
Looking from my perspective before being owner – if anybody had offered me to join the flight I would’ve gladly accepted and offered some compensation but it was usually sharing flight with other pilot.
Same I am afraid. When I ask them, they are enthusiastic, gushing great, fantastic. When the flight draws closer, they always seem to have a fence to creosote, or an ironing to do…….When I have taken them, no one has ever offered to pay costs. Not that I would look for it, but I would always offer I had one guy who pestered me, take me flying. When I took him up, he was petrified, and asked could we land almost immediately. Must be my flying..
There are multiple reasons I am sure.
I used to rent my plane out years ago and saw some of this.
Often, the wife “reminds” the husband that he has a family responsibility… end of GA flying for him. One was even an airline pilot but he had to stop GA flying due to this reason. I seem to recall he was even a GA FI. Of course most men don’t like to admit that the woman they chose and married has successfully managed to curtail their old freedoms 
But, in the end, most people in the modern era are just so busy, juggling a complicated life of work (which – here in the UK for sure – the majority dislike but obviously have to do), family life, social appointments (most “socially busy” people I know are booked up socially anything up to 6 months ahead), etc etc. Many people I know have so many balls in the air they don’t know whether they are coming or going. Many people buy and eat their lunches and dinners at petrol stations… Justine (my GF) is a qualified nutritionist and she sees this all the time. There is a whole world out there of people who are flat out from morning to evening.
It is quite normal to arrange to meet up with somebody on a particular day in a week’s time and they cancel it because something happened. Often something involving the kids or the horse – these obviously take precedence over everything else. But if you have a family, things are just hard to organise (the babysitter may be off sick, etc) and even with one child you get nearly 15 years of this.
Or they got a better offer. I mean… if you offered somebody a flight in a TB20 and somebody else offers them a flight in a TBM900, how many would not cancel you? Or they got a chance to do something more socially interesting. The main difference would be the reason they give you but it will always be false because no matter how they frame it it will look bad They are taking a risk because you might find out… and it will be worse if you find out from somebody else
I have a theoretical list of about 20 people who have said “next time you fly, let me know” but after I have texted one of these several times and got either a No or no response I don’t ask them again.
Then your “market” is reduced by 50% because if you are say a guy and married or in a relationship, you can’t keep flying with a woman without eventually p1ssing off yours. More than 50% actually, because there are statistically more women who have free time during the day…
Often it’s just nice to fly alone, but it is more expensive. I do have a small number of contacts who are reliable but it would be very hard to find regular contacts to fly with say once a week.
Personally, I really dislike booking myself up on any day in the weeks (or more) ahead, because that one booking knocks out the entire week as far as going away somewhere. I guess a lot of people do make bookings like that, but they assume they will probably cancel them.
BeechBaby wrote:
I had one guy who pestered me, take me flying.
A friend of mine (glider pilot) had similar situation and he took a guy for a flight that lasted 9 hours (Slovenia to Germany and back) with no option of immediate landing
Peter wrote:
I have a theoretical list of about 20 people who have said “next time you fly, let me know” but after I have texted one of these several times and got either a No or no response I don’t ask them again.
Same here.
Peter wrote:
I guess a lot of people do make bookings like that, but they assume they will probably cancel them.
OTOH it’s interesting how same people can book commercial flight six or nine months in advance to get cheaper tickets and wouldn’t cancel them for any reason even if it’s something as small as 50€ or less.
Sitting in a small, hot and noisy cockpit with headphones on, no ability to move around, no toilet and so on is not everybody’s idea of fun. And hey, I can understand that. Therefore, I do not actively offer flights to non-pilots. Some people (usually business contacts) show interest when they learn about my flying and we go for a local sightseeing flight together. This happens 2 or 3 times a year. I never take money in these cases. I regard it as an investment in networking, and it usually pays off.
I accepted money from non-pilots only when somebody “hired” me (not in the legal sense) for gift flights to their godchild/husband/sister. These were always nice experiences, because the people really enjoyed their presents. I tried to make the experience memorable too, up to photoshopping fake souvenir boarding passes in a few cases .
Of course, I cost-share when taking other pilots up with me. This doesn’t happen that often, however. I think it is mostly due to my busy schedule. It is difficult enough for me to find the time to go flying on my own every 10 to 14 days, not to mention coordinating this slot with somebody else.
I had more time when I did my CPL/IR/MEP training. Back then, I offered 2 or 3 fellow students to go flying with me just for the real share of costs. These were young guys hour-builidng for their CPL. For less than 100 Euros per hour they would have been able to fly a reasonably complex aircraft down to the Mediterranean or whatever. Instead, they almost exclusively chartered those miserable battered DA-20’s from the flight school for nearly twice the money and flew circles around LOAN. So much to mentoring …
That is one of the reasons, I decided to go for a much less expensive two-seater as my own aircraft. I can rent a four-seater, if need be, which was rarely the case so far.
The reason for operating a 4-seater is usually not that one intends to fill 4 seats. There are just no decently performing 2-seaters in the (certified) market if you intend to use the plane for more than local flying. Furthermore, there seems to be almost no price difference between comparably equipped 2-seaters and 4-seaters when shopping for used aircraft.
In my case, I fly alone 60% of the time and with one other person 30% of the time. When I am alone, I enjoy the extra performance way below gross weight. When flying on holidays together with my wife, we do not have to think much about packing our bags. We usually depart with way more baggage than if going by airline, and if we intend to take some cases of wine back home with us, that’s no issue at all. No way this would be possible with a 2-seater.
However, I didn’t really comprehend this when new to flying. I was looking into 2-seaters first, and I am grateful to my co-owner who already had experience in aircraft ownership for steering me in the “right” direction.
Sitting in a small, hot and noisy cockpit with headphones on, no ability to move around, no toilet and so on is not everybody’s idea of fun. And hey, I can understand that.
I don’t fully agree. As pilots (and thus passenger haulers) it is also our job to make it is comfortable as possible.
Small? Well, in most aircraft, there is more legroom and sideroom than in the average short haul 737/A320!
Hot? Your job to make it as comfortable as possible. A lot can be done witj ventilation/heating. Of course, in high summer, one must avoid to fly low-level as far as possible.
Noisy? It should go without saying that if you are flying and old and poorly insulated aircraft, you should have high-quality ANR headsets for the pax.
On the toilet, you are correct of course.
Again: our job to make it as enjoyable an experience as possible. Then, all in all, it can really compete with the airline experience, at least on trips less than say 500 miles.
