Flight Club wants to convince pilots to share their aircraft

Flight Club offers pilots a system for starting, building, and managing their own flying clubs using the leverage of its larger club network to help lower costs and overcome challenges such as insuring a club’s fleet and finding time-building opportunities for pilots seeking commercial aviation careers.

Many are likely to ask how such a system could overcome pilots’ natural reluctance to hand over their airplane keys to random strangers. The Flight Club model seeks to avoid or lessen such potential conflicts and ease concerns through several procedures.

“When aircraft owners have hesitations about sharing their aircraft, it is often rooted in fears of the unknown,” said Ehsan Monfared, one of Flight Club’s founding members who helped introduce the platform in the United States after operating it successfully in Canada.

Monfared cites the perceived difficulty of finding and vetting responsible, proficient, and trustworthy pilots to rent their airplanes as a top concern among aircraft owners. Sorting out insurance, scheduling, and other basic administrative tasks tends to be another hurdle for owners who might consider participating. “Our goal is to address all these points through the Flight Club marketplace,” he said.

Flight Club has a regimented application and approval process for pilots wishing to use members’ aircraft. “Simply put, there’s no instance where an aircraft owner lists his/her plane, and pilots can just start flying the aircraft without the owner’s involvement,” Monfared said. “The aircraft owners remain in full control.”

Under the club’s system the owner can choose to approve or reject pilots who apply based on a range of factors, from the applicant's qualifications and experience to the types of missions they intend to fly. Once approved, the applying pilot completes a qualification flight with a CFI in the club’s network or another pilot of the owner’s choosing. The owner can also set limitations on their aircraft’s use beyond the club’s minimum standards, such as restricting users to daytime flights and paved airfields.

The club’s overarching goal is to prevent the cost and complexity of aircraft ownership, and the difficulties associated with aircraft access, from becoming barriers to entry. As the appeal of general aviation flying grows among aspiring private and professional pilots, the demand for time building, personal flights, and instruction will increase as the supply of available aircraft tends to tighten. According to Flight Club, its model can ease the difficulty and stress of getting airborne.

For more information or to find the locations of clubs and available aircraft, visit the Flight Club website to set up a demo. The group also helps pilots set up and run their own clubs.