AIRNAV not publishing fuel prices...

.... of new FBOs. Apparently they will only publish prices for FBOs
that have a subscription with them. Of course they own the web site so
it is their choice to do whatever they like. But it didn't use to be
this way. Previously AIRNAV would encourage reporting fuel prices on
all airports free of charge. I tried to contact AIRNAV regarding this
new policy but have received no replies.

Maybe somebody with the right capabilities could build a mirror web
site so we could publish the fuel prices.

If you know any other web site which publish the fuel prices on all
airports please let us know.

(Victor) wrote in
om:

... of new FBOs. Apparently they will only publish prices for FBOs
that have a subscription with them.

The same holds true of ANY FBO (fuel or repair). I've already noticed
that their lists of airport services is getting smaller and smaller.
It's really sad.

--
John Godwin
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT from email address)

John Godwin wrote:
(Victor) wrote in
om:


... of new FBOs. Apparently they will only publish prices for FBOs
that have a subscription with them.


The same holds true of ANY FBO (fuel or repair). I've already noticed
that their lists of airport services is getting smaller and smaller.
It's really sad.


Fuel prices at most of the airports within 50 miles of me are listed. I'm not
sure that all of them have a "subscription" with Airnav.

In a previous article, Tyler said:
Fuel prices at most of the airports within 50 miles of me are listed. I'm not
sure that all of them have a "subscription" with Airnav.

Last year, AirNav contacted me (as representative of my flying club) and
gave me a year to pony up some extremely high listing fee or get dropped
from their listing. Checking the fact that in the previous month only one
person had come to our club web site through the AirNav listing (versus
10-20 a day through Google) we declined to be listed.

I suspect your local FBOs are probably in their 1 year waiting period.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody
thinks of complaining."

Last year, AirNav contacted me (as representative of my flying club) and
gave me a year to pony up some extremely high listing fee or get dropped
from their listing. Checking the fact that in the previous month only one
person had come to our club web site through the AirNav listing (versus
10-20 a day through Google) we declined to be listed.

Paulo (Airnav's webmaster) did the same with us, and we ponied up.

He has a great website, and I use it almost daily for one thing or another.
I think their listing fee works out to something less than 60 cents a day --
something I was glad to pay for such a valuable service.

For a flying club I suppose only "click-throughs" matter. FBO owners,
however, need to be looking at their listing from an exposure standpoint.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:go9Sb.50241$U%5.270242@attbi_s03...

He has a great website, and I use it almost daily for one thing or another.
I think their listing fee works out to something less than 60 cents a day --
something I was glad to pay for such a valuable service.

I think its utility will be a lot less valuable once the "free"
period has expired for all of the GA businesses. The beauty of the
original site was that it had all available info about FBOs and fuel
prices around the country and all of the info came directly from the
horses mouths (us). Once the site is reduced to info about only
businesses that paid up, it ceases to be the all encompassing,
one-stop-shopping resource that it once was. I know more GA business
owners who have declined to pony up, than those who have.

One other issue I have with Airnav's new direction is what will
Paulo do about a crappy business that offers poor service or rips off
customers? If they pay their advertising fee, do they get negative
comments removed from their listing? If not, why would they pay? And
if that were the case, how would we find out about them?

I know running Airnav costs money, I just think this new direction
kills off the core of what made Airnav the best aviation site on the
Internet. I'd rather see banner advertising to pay the bills.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

Last year, AirNav contacted me (as representative of my flying club) and
gave me a year to pony up some extremely high listing fee or get dropped
from their listing. Checking the fact that in the previous month only one
person had come to our club web site through the AirNav listing (versus
10-20 a day through Google) we declined to be listed.

For a flying club I suppose only "click-throughs" matter. FBO owners,
however, need to be looking at their listing from an exposure standpoint.

Well, flying clubs can look at their listing not only from the
perspective of a direct benefit to the club (getting exposure for
their club on a site with highly targeted GA interests, as opposed to
a general public search engine such as Google) but also from the
perspective of he benefit to their operation and to their members. If
AirNav helps their members operate their aircraft more efficiently,
increase flying hours and/or reduce operating costs, then it should
make sense for them to do their fair share to improve AirNav's chances
of being around to continue to provide that service.

Alas, not all view it that way, and some look at hits only.

In the case of Paul Tomblin, who defended his club's treasure chest by
declining the offer, that "extremely high listing fee" was less than
$2 per club member per year. If AirNav is not worth $2 per year to
his club members, then he did the right thing by refusing the
extremely high priced offer.

Paulo Santos
AirNav, LLC http://www.airnav.com/

It's amazing to watch all these people turn against AirNav. I use the site
every time I was doing long distance planning. The FBO list and the
comments were the best part of it. The site is simple, fast and works
well. (for people on slow dialup lines at home or traveling simple is
really good!)

I clicked on "add new fbo" and it listed the basic listing as $20/year.
This certainly isn't going to break the bank at any fbo.

I hope he doesn't start loosing lists as that's one the main uses I have for
the site. That said it costs money to run it and he has to make money
somehow. Maybe this will work for him, maybe not? I certainly hope it
doesn't go away!

-Andrew


Paul Tomblin wrote:

In a previous article, Tyler said:
Fuel prices at most of the airports within 50 miles of me are listed. I'm
not sure that all of them have a "subscription" with Airnav.

Last year, AirNav contacted me (as representative of my flying club) and
gave me a year to pony up some extremely high listing fee or get dropped
from their listing. Checking the fact that in the previous month only one
person had come to our club web site through the AirNav listing (versus
10-20 a day through Google) we declined to be listed.

I suspect your local FBOs are probably in their 1 year waiting period.



--
Andrew Stanley-Jones | "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
EE, LongEz N87KJ | -- Walt Disney

ASJ wrote:


I hope he doesn't start loosing lists as that's one the main uses I have
for
the site. That said it costs money to run it and he has to make money
somehow. Maybe this will work for him, maybe not? I certainly hope it
doesn't go away!

It is an interesting problem, common to too many "middle man" businesses:
the set of parties that pay isn't exactly the real consumer. In this case,
the site visitors are the users while the businesses pay for the listings.

Economically, it would make more sense for the listings to be free and the
site to be available only to subscribers (or with a "value added" section
available only to subscribers). Those that accrue the most value are
paying for the site in that situation. More, there's no economic incentive
that reduces the site's quality.

Given how much we here like the site, I suspect that this would have been
the smarter move.

As it stands, there's going to be a drop in quality of the site because the
need to pay is going to cause some businesses to balk. The drop in quality
will mean, long term, fewer visitors. That in turn means that businesses
are less likely to pay.

It's a downward spiral from there.

- Andrew

In article ,
ASJ wrote:

It's amazing to watch all these people turn against AirNav.

I'm not against it, it's just a far less valuable resource when the
data is being filtered by who pays to be listed. I don't want to know
just which FBOs and restaurants paid the protection money, I want to
know them all.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/