"Peter Duniho" wrote in message ...
IMHO, it's more important to not alienate those who cancel for a good
reason
than it is to worry too much about those who cancel just because they had
reserved on a whim and then decided not to fly. There can't be that many
of
the latter, but there are plenty of the former. In addition, those who
"reserve on a whim" won't take long to identify. If they are truly a
problem, even a half dozen foundless cancellations in a month wouldn't
break
the bank at the FBO, but would certainly be enough to drop the guy as a
customer.

In many cases, it's not the FBO that owns the aircraft... I had made the
mistake of putting my aircraft on leaseback after I purchased it... It got
to the point where if I wanted to be able to take my own plane out for a
weekend trip, I had to reserve a month in advance (i.e. past where the
written log was allowing others to reserve)... Many times I would find
someone who had reserved for a couple of hours on the weekend having
cancelled and if it hadn't been for him, I would have been able to take it
out that weekend... Of course there was also the issue of students (and
instructors) damaging the plastics on the interior, stripping the gears on
the radios by turning them past their stops, and various other things, so I
took it off leaseback about 5 years ago and have been VERY happy with
knowing that the plane is always available...