Club Management Issue

"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote in message
nk.net...
[...] 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.

Well, you got the answers that were available, and then the thread expanded
to other related topics. That's not uncommon on Usenet. Be thankful it
didn't turn into some political tirade.

[...] 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.

Between those two choices, the club probably should bear the cost, since
after all, it is the club who failed to clarify what the policy would be in
the first place. I suppose the club could charge it back to the owners, but
it doesn't sound like good business to me, nor is it clear that should the
owners decide to take it to court, that they would lose.

[...] 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.

Um, I'm not sure what you mean here. Nothing in your original post
suggested that there was any reason for Paul to suspect the alternator was
going to fail before he departed. Assuming he didn't, I don't see how "Paul
decided to take it there" has any bearing. Airplanes are, after all, all
about going places. It's practically a foregone conclusion that if a
failure should happen, it will happen somewhere relatively far away from
home.

As for whether Paul should be expected to remain with the airplane or should
be expected to pay for the return flight, I think your logic is a little
off. First of all, it may not have been possible for him to remain with the
airplane. As for paying for the return flight, it gets back to what the
club is warranting. Renting is expensive, and the renter has very little
control over most of the things an owner would normally control. These are
the downsides. The upside is that the renter doesn't have to worry about
maintenance.

IMHO, this also includes any hassles related to a failure that occurs away
from the airplane's home base. Assuming the renter didn't cause the
failure, why should he have to pay for use of the airplane after that
failure? It was only "Paul's job to get that plane back here" up until the
point where the airplane failed.

Compare it to a rental car, for example. You can bet that if I rented a
car, and that car broke down somewhere, there's no way I'd pay for any
mileage past what I'd already driven. I would contact the rental company,
and expect them to high-tail it out to my location with a replacement car so
I could get on my way. If they refused that, I'd make my own arrangements
and let them deal with the car in their own time. I sure as heck wouldn't
pay for *their* mileage back to the rental office, after they got the car
fixed and drove it back themselves.

Frankly, I would expect the rental company, should I be significantly
inconvenienced (more than a 30 minute delay or so, maybe shorter depending
on my schedule), to give me a significant discount, even if they do provide
a replacement car. And a real high-class outfit ought to provide the entire
rental for free.

So, in the case of the airplane, if the club really wants to be known as a
responsible outfit, they should have flown out a replacement airplane, or
otherwise assisted in arranging for alternative transportation for the
renter. They definitely should not expect the renter to pay for any time
beyond what HE actually flew. And frankly, they really ought to discount or
eliminate altogether the charges for the time he did fly.

I realize that aviation is a business with thin margins. But if you don't
treat your customers properly, your margins mean nothing, because your
customers disappear. The fact that this is a club doesn't change things.
If the club doesn't have the margins to cover this sort of thing, they need
to raise their rates enough so that they do. Yes, this means that everyone
pays a little more. But if the club has decent maintenance of the
airplanes, we're not talking any amount that anyone would notice, and it
will return huge dividends in goodwill.

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.

Yes, it might as well. However, I don't think you really need to even
consider that possibility to see why the renter should not be charged to
bring the plane back.

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.

No, the same could not be said. The VFR pilot is, by definition, subject to
the whim of the weather (as is the IFR pilot, for that matter). As long as
the club has a reasonable policy for dealing with weather delays, such as
what I mentioned in my first reply to your post, there should be no need for
anyone to come rescue him. Any pilot should be prepared to be delayed by
weather, and should not need a rescue. Of course, if the pilot chooses to
avail himself of that option, understanding the extra costs that he will
incur, that's another thing. But that's not a normal, expected outcome of
being weathered in. Waiting is.

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.

Huh? Again, your logic is flawed. Weather simply means the pilot will be
late coming back with the plane; the club has no responsibility to get them
home. Mechanical failure is completey different. Furthermore, I doubt the
club would have pilots calling to complain about a mechanical problem when
they were really just weathered in. After all, mechanical problems need
fixing, and it's easily verified whether a mechanical problem really existed
or not.

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.

Why? Only the FARs would require that he be billed, assuming he he didn't
have a commercial rating. Otherwise, the club should not only waive any
charges for the flight home, but should also pay for his overnight lodging.

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.

"Entrusted to his care"? Excuse me? That's just silly. The aircraft was
"entrusted to his care" only inasmuch as the aircraft met the implied
warranty of airworthiness. The instant it failed that, it is no longer his
responsibility. Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that if he had an
engine failure in flight, but failed to land the airplane without any
damage, you'd send him the bill for the repairs.

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.

He had no such obligation, once the mechanical failure occured.

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?"

I can tell you, if I was a member of a club that created a rule like that
that included mechanical failures, I would quit in a heartbeat. I want a
club that will take care of their airplanes, and stand by their own
responsibility to the club members renting the airplane to provide an
airworthy airplane. I don't want a club that feels it has the right to pass
the buck to renters who have the misfortune to have the hot potato in their
hands when something breaks.

It's bad enough Paul had the inconvenience of having an airplane break while
he was using it, but now you want him to PAY for that privilege? That's
just silly.

Pete