It’s time for the Uber of air travel

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/its-time-for-the-uber-of-air-travel/2015/07/30/09c4c8c2-353a-11e5-8e66-07b4603ec92a_story.html

by molecule • 11 years ago

49 60 11 years ago

washingtonpost.com

autotune• 11 years ago

If it were as easy for a person to secure a pilot license and start flying people for cheap as it is to secure a drivers license and start driving people I would nope out of this before you can say the "s" in "safety." The second an amateur pilot gets their license for a company like this and accidentally crashes the plane is when the whole potential for this industry goes underwater.

paulhauggis• 11 years ago

The reason the airlines have little competition is because it takes lots of money to run an airline and keep up with all of the regulations. Which is a good thing. With the thousands of flights going on every day, accidents are pretty minimal.

But it also shows that the more government regulation an industry has, the less competition we will see, because only huge corporations can survive.

a8da6b0c91d• 11 years ago

You also bump into the question of whether you really want maintenance crews and pilots to be as cheap as economically possible. Or maybe these roles deserve some prestige and protection to ensure greater professionalism.

rbobby2• 11 years ago

Pilots are as cheap as economically possible. Some are even on food stamp programs.

PhantomGremlin• 11 years ago

maintenance crews ... to be as cheap as economically possible

Already happening. How does $2/hr sound to you? US airlines are sending more and more of their heavy maintenance to third-world countries. http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocument...

Welcome to the global race to the bottom.

toomuchtodo• 11 years ago

Competition is only healthy when safety is put above profits. This happens when regulations have teeth.

will_brown3• 11 years ago

The article of course references both AirBnB and Uber, two companies who in many instances outright violated the law in their respective industries. I wonder how many people would feel comfortable with an Uber for Flying if the pilots were not commercially licensed. Just more outdated regulations put into place by an industry with significant lobbying budgets and political connections right?

dylanjermiah6• 11 years ago

Commercially licensed !instantly= good pilot. And vice versa.

will_brown3• 11 years ago

Commercially licensed pilot = legally allowed to fly passengers in exchange for compensation (above cost of flight)

Seeing as AirBnB hosts and Uber drivers have been found in violation of the law in some jurisdictions my question is relevant. Whereas when have you ever vetted a airline pilot before purchasing a commercial flight?

kevincl• 11 years ago

While a worthy goal, the defining feature of the sharing economy is "sharing" of a resource that a significant part of the population owns. It's disingenuous to compare air travel to either hospitality or taxis, because 1. Planes are owned almost completely by companies 2. The infrastructure to use planes, i.e. airports, is not open to the public, unlike roads and homes

frisco2• 11 years ago

99.99% of airports are public use. Not just big ones either: there are only about ~200 airports in the US serviced by airlines, but there are thousands of small airports you go can land a Cessna at mostly for free. But that's not really the problem with OP's ideas.

nemothekid• 11 years ago

Sorry to be off topic here, but does this mean I can go out and but plane, then just go land it at JFK or SFO?

NhanH• 11 years ago

The article is pretty light on the exact mechanical execution of what "Uber of air travel" means. I'm also under the impression that unlike taxi and hotels, airlines actually operate with razor-thin marhin. And unless one has an innovation that can actually lower the fundamental operating/ logistics cost (eg. Southwest), skirting around the law won't be of much used here.

dylanjermiah6• 11 years ago

The private flight business is worth more than the public flight business.

PhasmaFelis2• 11 years ago

There was a wonderful story I read 15 or 20 years ago and unfortunately can't find a source for now, that went something like this: Some random entrepreneur had made a bunch of money by buying textile plants and streamlining them, eliminating inefficiencies, canning redundant workers, so on and so forth. Flush with success, he decided he wanted to branch out into other industries that weren't making enough money and needed to hear his gospel of efficiency, and bought a bunch of fiction publishing houses. He quickly discovered that he couldn't do shit with them, because publishing is a business with razor-edge margins, and the publishers that weren't run with machine-like precision had all gone out of business already.

If you want to "disrupt" the airline business, invent anti-gravity. Until you do that, all your clever business ideas aren't going to change the fact that air travel requires a fuckton of expensive fuel per passenger.

powera• 11 years ago

I assumed this would be a submarine ad article for Netjets. But it's not even that interesting.

numair• 11 years ago

I don't think there are enough qualified pilots to make this work. Maybe in a future with self-flying planes? We are definitely talking 10+ years away, though.

idrios2• 11 years ago

Don't dismiss this idea. It's easy to state the obvious that Uber for airlines would not be like Uber, because most people don't own private airplanes. But the author is asking for a more general "how can we disrupt the airline industry the way Uber disrupted taxis?"

As with any startup, first ask "what is the need you're satisfying" - Need more affordable, more convenient fast travel from point A to point B.

"What will you do to solve that need?" (get creative, this is your specialty) Ex.1 - Offer people who purchased plane tickets but needed to cancel (and were not allowed to because of no-refund policy) a service to sell to others at the (presumably low b/c it was purchased early) price they bought it.

"How will your company make money?" Ex.1 - take 5% cut

"What kind of people will you need to hire..." -> this is getting more specific than necessary <-

While I would have doubts about that business model I just threw together in 5 minutes, my point real point is-- you guys are Hacker News. Some of the smartest people in the world. We could definitely figure out an Uber for airlines and disrupt that industry!

..unless someone is already working on this and is protecting their actual IP

saryant• 11 years ago

You generally can't change the name on an airline ticket.

akhilcacharya• 11 years ago

Looks like we found the first thing that needs to be disrupted!

gobbert• 11 years ago

Is this a standard list of questions that I can find somewhere? They sound helpful.

idrios2• 11 years ago

That list was a paraphrased version of what I've picked up reading HN and talking to a few entrepreneurs near where I go to college.

As a whole if you're trying to start a company I'd say you must be able to answer two questions: 1. What is the need I am satisfying 2. Can this be profitable

For the kind of list you're talking about, the business model canvas is a great resource http://businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/bmc?_ga=1.20278319...

and then if you have more time on your hands, Peter Thiel (Founder of Paypal) led a really good class at Stanford on how to start a company, which is entirely transcribed in a blog by Blake Masters http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup <-This was the series that first got me really interested in startups, and is also indirectly how I discovered Hacker News. Definitely worth the read

Additionally, Sam Altman taught the class a few years later and recorded the whole thing on video. It's equally excellent http://startupclass.samaltman.com/

larzang• 11 years ago

Uber "disrupted taxis" by disregarding the law, removing protections for both passengers and operators, and shifting risk on to operators while shifting profit margins to management.

None of which exactly inspire confidence when it comes to something like operating aircraft.

dylanjermiah6• 11 years ago

Do you have any conclusive evidence that the laws 'protected' both sides in a superior manner than Uber does? Edit: If you'd like to down vote fine, but please also provide evidence for/against their/my claims. To be against data, or the asking of evidence is to be ignorant.

IIAOPSW2• 11 years ago

I can't find the article right now, but this idea isn't new and the answer (according to the FAA) is no. There are several types of pilots license but they all fall into the category of commercial or private. Private pilots can bring passengers in their planes much like private drivers can bring people in their cars. BUT private pilots cannot explicitly sell their service. Passengers on a private plane cannot be the sole reason a flight is happening in the first place. If you are a pilot and you break this law, you risk loosing your license (and it is a much higher investment of time and money than a driver license).

For a while there were legally grey areas involving "fly share" websites. A recent-ish FAA ruling determined that this is not legally grey, it is not allowed. Period. Dot. Until that issue is resolved, Air-Uber is a head-in-the-clouds dream.

IMO the FAA is right to enforce a certain level of safety and competence in the skies. Most pilots agree with them. This is not like taxi medallions. The regulatory body actually does something useful rather than just protecting rent seekers. At the same time, I think there is a demand for fly-sharing. Perhaps the FAA could create a license in-between commercial and private that allows you to shuttle up to 4 people in a Cessna or similar aircraft.

prostoalex2• 11 years ago

The article addressed only commercial air travel, so more of on-demand short-distance aspect of Uber than share-my-personal-vehicle-in-a-commercial-fashion aspect of it. After a series of mergers and acquisitions US air space is close to oligopoly.

rory096• 11 years ago

Airpooler and Flytenow were the startups in the space. (Had the idea myself a few years back.) The FAA ruling was pretty unambiguous:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/15/faa-bans-planesharing-start...

ksherlock• 11 years ago

Flytenow seems to be suing the FAA to get that overturned. I can't imagine that will get them anywhere though.

delbel2• 11 years ago

The rules are to strict. If your friend is a pilot and you guys decide to go out on a flight, you can't in any way pitch in for gas money because it could be interpreted as commercial exchange. In my opinion the FAA is overreaching. I live in a rural area with an airport and would love to be able to fly to my home town, Portland, on a regular basis for business and pleasure. Right now to fly to Portland I'd have to drive 120 miles to Medford, OR , then fly down to San Francisco, then fly to Seattle and connect a fight to Portland! And back again. It'd be cheaper and faster to take Greyhound.

IIAOPSW2• 11 years ago

The rules are to strict. If your friend is a pilot and you guys decide to go out on a flight, you can't in any way pitch in for gas money because it could be interpreted as commercial exchange.

That isn't true and that is not at all what I said. You can be compensated legally. You just can't be over compensated. In other words, you are not allowed to make a profit on a private license.

ac29• 11 years ago

Right now to fly to Portland I'd have to drive 120 miles to Medford, OR , then fly down to San Francisco, then fly to Seattle and connect a fight to Portland! And back again.

Or, you could fly from Medford to Portland? My first search shows Alaska Airlines flies multiple daily flights between MFR and PDX.

nightski2• 11 years ago

Meh if you have a private pilot's license it isn't that difficult to get a commercial license. An ATP license on the other hand...

pmorici• 11 years ago

If you look at the "sharing" economy as the trend of increasing the utilization of an expensive piece of equipment to maximize its use; then I'm pretty sure when it comes to air travel Southwest Airlines has been doing that for a while and is the undisputed leader in efficiency.

markbnj2• 11 years ago

This is a mystifying analogy. The average person has a vehicle that might possibly be shared via Uber. Almost nobody has an aircraft they can do that with. The organizations that do have aircraft tend to be, surprise, airlines, leasing companies, flying clubs. As for "robust international carriers" many or most of those are state-owned. Operating aircraft safely is a labor- and capital-intensive business. It's hardly an area where one wants to see a lot of little startups burning VC money.

dylanjermiah6• 11 years ago

Yep. Travis (CEO) had already said, if a particular space relates to Uber's core competency than chances are they'll do it. I don't think they'll do air travel in this sense.

andrewljohnson• 11 years ago

"The average person has a vehicle that might possibly be shared via Uber."

Wait, is that true? My experience with Uber drivers is they all bought a new car to be Uber drivers, sometimes with a loan Uber helps them get.

Uber being some kind of "sharing" economy company seems a little dubious. They are really quite different than AirBnB, which really is based on a surplus of housing.

Uber is mostly just a taxi company, and their fleet is all pristine, new cards, which they make drivers get and maintain. And the drivers are only "not employees" according to a very fine line.

It's more like the "1099" economy than the "sharing" economy. Uber isn't leveraging a car surplus - they are capitalizing on a worker surplus. There are no beat up old jalopeys getting "shared" via Uber. There is no natural, organic market, among people with/without cars.

mahyarm• 11 years ago

I think it depends on your market. Where I am, there are a lot of people just using their personal car. I heard the minimum is a 2000 year car in good condition, which is about 15 years old now.

pithon• 11 years ago

Yes, the average person has a vehicle.

markbnj2• 11 years ago

Yes, I thought about addressing this in the comment. Most Uber drivers are much more like 1099 contractors, but I think for this purpose a general notion of what a "sharing economy" entails is sufficient for the purposes of comparison with this idea. Either way it just doesn't hold up.

remarkEon2• 11 years ago

I agree with the comments in this thread about how the FAA is a right to enforce strict regulation in this market, and that Uber did indeed shift risk to operators, and that this would be incredibly unwise to do for air travel.

IMHO, I think we need more major airports. Right now it seems we're bounded by lack of access, here. Perhaps any disruption in this market needs to be done at local governments in how they determine land use for airports. I imagine it would be a special kind of torture to have to drive from, say, Anaheim or other parts of LA East of downtown, to LAX to catch a flight after a meeting. Don't know the total history of LA, but why isn't there a second major airport out that way ala JFK-LGA-EWR in New York?

A quick google search found this[1] document about en route flight operations and how flights travel across the country. Perhaps there's some work to be done in terms of developing some kind of fantasy air flight simulation game, aimed at optimizing how we move people around the country - if anything, just for fun. After reading through some of this, I'm even more convinced that "Uber for air travel" is not a wise idea considering how complicated all of this is and the safety risk involved.

One can wonder, is Atlanta such a major hub simply because they have so much land or is that really an optimal connection airport for so many major routes?

[1] http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/av...

Here's the page with the whole document: http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/av...

Edit: Grammar

elorant• 11 years ago

What the article fails to mention is that it’s very hard to make a profit in the aviation business. That’s why we end up with oligopolies, sooner or later airline corporations have to merge in order to cut costs. So if the big players have a hard time keeping afloat I don’t see how an Uber style airliner could make it. Unless of course they end-up landing in peripheral airports, charging for luggage like Raynair does, extending waiting times for a few hours and cutting many of the amenities we’ve come to expect as standard.

tobico• 11 years ago

This is ridiculous, air travel is expensive because planes are giant expensive machines, consume a significant amount of rare fossil fuel to fly, and can only be safely flown by highly trained experts. No kind of app is going to solve any of those problems.

jqm• 11 years ago

Maybe when the delivery drone thing kicks off (if ever) they can make a slightly larger one and deliver people also. For that matter, if they can remote pilot a drone load of missiles to Afghanistan I don't see why it can't be done from rural Arkansas to Las Vegas. So maybe one day soon.. the technology is almost there. But right now we don't have the machines nor the infrastructure (legal and physical) to make anything like this possible.

It’s time for the Uber of air travel

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