Club Management Issue

Thanks, Peter. Everything you say has great merit, and I agree with all of
your points. As you noted, the club could of course raise our hourly rate
to build up a margin that would allow us to deal with these contingencies at
no cost to the member who finds himself stranded someplace. At the end of
the day, we either do that or we ask individual pilots to take
responsibility for getting the plane home after the owner-financed repairs
have been accomplished.

So in this case, it really is a key fact that this is a club and not just
another FBO. We have members, and not just simple customers, and it will be
the members who must decide which way they want to go. The club currently
passes virtually all of the rental fees back to the owners of the planes,
and what little it does keep mostly goes back out the door in sales tax.
For the most part, this particular club has historically sided with keeping
the hourly costs down for all of the members and has shunned taking on
additional expenses such as paying for ferrying costs when the PIC decides
to abandon an aircraft somewhere else. If I were handicapping the way that
the membership will vote, I suspect that they will prefer to keep the hourly
costs where they are while accepting the potential for having to pay
ferrying costs in the future.

That's the way that my vote will probably go as well. Again, I agree with
every point you make but I still come down on the other side of the issue.
I still really appreciate your comments, though, and I thank you for a very
good response that must have taken a goodly amount of time to write. You
are a quality guy, mate, and I thank you for it!


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