AirPooler: like car pooling, but with airplanes.
The same way Uber and Lyft connect drivers and passengers for a quick and affordable ride, AirPooler connects pilots with passengers willing to share fuel costs and other travel expenses. Using AirPooler's website, passengers enter a trip they want to take, and if available, are connected to pilots who would be making that flight anyway.
It sounds quite practical, in theory, but of course there is room for a wealth of risks. Recognizing that, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently declared AirPooler is not operating legally.
Arranging such travel is equivalent to a charter flight, which requires additional licenses and regulatory oversight, the FAA said in an Aug. 13 letter to a lawyer for AirPooler, reports Bloomberg. The letter was in response to a May 19 letter in which AirPooler asked the FAA whether its pilots needed commercial licenses.
According to Bloomberg, the FAA's legal interpretation rejects the idea that these air-travel services simply amount to cost-sharing rather than commercial aviation operations. The pilots or the company may face FAA enforcement action if it continues to operate as a cost-sharing operation.
A call to AirPooler regarding insurance for its flights was not immediately returned.
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