Aircraft rental and instruction rates are too low in many places around the country. I know, this sounds blasphemous and like I am advocating that companies raise their rates just so they can make more profit. There is no doubt a concern that any increase in rates may drive more potential pilots out of the world of aviation when they are not able to afford the prices. I have the same concern, but there is another concern that I think is even more important. If businesses that provide instruction and aircraft rental don’t increase their rates, they aren’t charging enough to break even or make a profit from a business viewpoint. The result of not charging enough to cover costs is simple to determine, they will go out of business and we won’t have places to rent aircraft.
Many providers of rental aircraft set their prices relative to other providers of similar aircraft in their market area. In many instances this is done without consideration of what the real hourly operational costs for the aircraft are and what is required for the aircraft to support its own cost. This is less than scientific from a financial perspective and does nothing to ensure business success. Continue reading
The image of the senior pilot carrying his big flight bag full of charts, plotters, headsets, and other goodies is one that remains strong in my mind from my initial days of flight training. The big flight bag full of all of the tools of the trade seemed like a mark of an experienced professional to me. Who knew what special and important goodies such a pilot carried with them as they headed out to the ramp to pilot aircraft larger and faster than the first training aircraft I was flying. Continue reading
New students and their completions isn’t the only answer to the dropping activity levels we have seen in aviation over recent years. Over the past two years, much has been highlighted about instructors need to “do a better job” at any number of things to help students improve their completion rate in training. Numbers being cited indicate that there is something near a 70% non-completion rate for pilot training. I agree, this is something that we as instructors should and can work to help improve. We can try to improve our training process, the service we provide, and give good clear paths for our students to follow to success. But once we have done that, the aviation industry needs to help find something for these pilots to do once they have completed their certificates. Continue reading
The argument over user fees for general aviation activities doesn’t seem to be going away. The President keeps putting them back into his budget proposals. Outside the U.S., user fees have had significant effects on GA activities in other countries. A recent article (http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/1999/99-2-002.html) highlighting significant increases in New Zealand, an example that should scare us here in the U.S.
The concept of user fees has seen strong opposition by aviation organizations, the strongest opponent being AOPA, and the vast majority of the GA community, but that opposition hasn’t made the discussion go away. Perhaps it is time we think about this differently. What if we had to live with some sort of a user fee? Is there any user fee structure that we could manage, one that would actually do something positive for our aviation community? Many different proposals have been discussed ranging from pay for access to airspace to landing fees, per flight fees and flight plan fees. In many of these proposals unintended consequences would be difficult to foresee, but some simple ones may be easily forecasted. Continue reading