Club Management Issue

Everyone here is worrying about legality, but I'll give you some
practical advice.

Thank you, Michael! You really summed things up. As this thread begins to
wear thin, I will throw in a few observations.

First of all, I am glad that I provided a thread that revealed a great deal
to me about the compensation for hire rules and the case law that surrounds
them. I learned a great deal. But I also must say that I received only a
few answers to my original question which was, "how do the FBOs and clubs
that you deal with handle this situation". Even though I really enjoyed the
responses regarding Mark's dangerous dance with the FARs, and even though I
could get wrapped up in all the ethical and moral standards which govern who
should pay for what, those really weren't the kinds of answers I was looking
for.

I really just want to know what rules and policies are in place at other
businesses which rent aircraft out. The club, in my mind, has failed in
this case because nobody ever decided what would happen in this
all-too-predictable scenario, and no rules were in the by-laws to govern
this decision. As a result, Paul -- the renter pilot -- had no idea what to
expect, and that's just no way to run things.

But then again, maybe the split nature of the responses stems from the fact
that there really ARE no consistent policies across FBOs and clubs for
situations like this one. I know for a fact that one of the local
establishments in these parts would have laid into Paul with fees for every
last penny involved in getting the aircraft home, and probably would have
tacked some additonal penalty onto the bill as well. That's all well and
good as a single indicator, but one of the reasons that we even have a club
is that so many of us were frustrated with the policies at this particular
FBO, and we don't exactly want to emulate their punitive polices. So if
anyone else has any experience with this kind of situation from another FBO
or club, I am still anxious to hear about how other places deal with it.

Now that that's out of the way, I guess I should give some update and
clarify a small number of points.

First, the owners knew about the mechanic's trip beforehand, and were happy
for him to go. They have developed a good relationship with this particual
A&P, and I think they felt more comfortable with him than they would have
with some unknown mechanic at the remote field. The owners definitely won't
have a problem with either the $70 in parts and labor, or the $100 that the
A&P billed as a travel fee.

The exact amount of Mark's fuel costs are still up in the air at this point,
but I know for a fact that he has been warned to think very, very carefully
about what he asks for. His thinking is still ongoing at this point, and
I'll let him come to that decision on his own.

Our original renter pilot, Paul, refuses to acknowledge any responsibiliby
for any of these costs. Since the club had no standing policy on this
question, there is no legitimate way in which the club can force Paul to pay
it. Frankly, if it were me, I would have just paid for the return flight
and avoided all the controversy about it. I also would not have left the
plane stranded in the first place, and would have hung around until it got
fixed. But Paul is pretty adamant and will not volunteer anything at all to
defray these costs, and the club has no policies on the books which say that
he has to. So either the club eats it -- essentially forcing 60-some other
people to pay for Paul's decision -- or we pass it onto the owners and risk
****ing them off.

After looking at this issue about 100 times in the last 5 days, I think I
have finally formed my own thoughts on the matter. It was a maintenance
issue which took the plane down, and the owners are clearly on the hook for
fixing the aircraft and returning it to an airworthy condition. So it is
the owner's problem that the alternator went out. The only reason why the
alternator went bad 250 miles from here, however, is that Paul decided to
take it there. The owners are responsible for fixing the problem,
regardless of where the plane is when the problem occurs. But Paul's job
was to get that plane back here. Nobody else took the plane there, and
nobody else should bear the responsiblity of getting it home.

I am sensitive to the idea that putting the renter on the hook for these
costs may make induce some pressure for them to overlook mechanical
problems. But the same could be said of a VFR pilot trapped under an
overcast and facing the costs of calling in two IFR "rescue" pilots to
retrieve the aircraft. The two situations cannot be separated from one
another, or every cloudy sky will begin to trigger phone calls to the club
office claiming that the planes won't start, and that the club should pay to
get them home.

Let's say Paul had stayed, gotten the problem fixed the next day, then then
flown the plane home. Clearly, he would have been billed for the 2.3 hours
it took to fly from there to here. Paul instead made a decision that it was
more important to get home than to take care of the aircraft which had been
entrusted to his care. Fair enough, that's his call. But that doesn't let
him escape his obligation to get the plane back to where the rest of the
membership can use it. If you make the decision to leave the plane
stranded, you have to own up to the costs that your decision is throwing
onto everyone else.

As our Chief CFI said to me today, "do we really need a rule which says that
when you take one of the club's airplanes, you have to bring it back?"
Sadly, I think we do. Thanks for your help, everybody!



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