Rental Cancellation Policies

"Greg Esres" wrote in message
...
[...]
My thought is that an airplane is a resource to the FBO, and they
should try to achieve the highest utilization that they can. Renters
who reserve but don't use the aircraft are using the resource without
paying for it, which produces higher costs for everyone else.

This is related to the "what happens when the plane breaks down" thread.
You might want to revisit that to see the varying opinions.

My opinion, of course (that is, if you read the other thread), is that the
whole point for renting is so that you don't have to deal with those issues.
That includes weather issues. There is some risk involved in owning an
airplane, with respect to maintenance, and with respect to not being able to
fly because of weather. One rents so as to not have to take those risks.
Someone else does, and spreads the cost of that risk across all of their
clients, in the form of an hourly rate for the airplane.

However, the FBO shouldn't have to tolerate people cancelling for no good
reason. A "one free" policy such as CJ describes would be more appropriate
for those situations. I just think the FBO or club needs to be careful to
only apply that sort of policy to situations that are clearly due only to
the pilot flaking out.

[...]
Some people cancel only when there's good reason to do so, but others
reserve on a whim just in case they might want to fly.

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.

Pete