WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Goldwater Institute has asked the United States Supreme Court to hear its case against the FAA for shutting down Flytenow, a start-up business that uses the Internet to connect private pilots with passengers wishing to share flight expenses.
Flytenow expands on “sharing economy” services that companies like Uber and Airbnb have popularized — websites or mobile applications allowing consumers to connect directly with private service providers.
Flytenow passengers do not pay for tickets or for the pilot’s time; instead, they share fuel and fee costs with the pilot. If the Court hears the case, it would be the first sharing-economy case to be considered, according to officials with the Goldwater Institute.
This cost-sharing arrangement between private pilots and passengers has been allowed by the FAA since the 1960s. Pilots previously found people to cost-share with by word of mouth, phone, posting notes on bulletin boards in airports, and various other means.
Flytenow simplified the process by allowing pilots to post a preplanned trip on a website for passengers interested in sharing costs.
But the FAA determined that the process of posting a planned trip on a website constituted advertising and that subjected the pilots to the same regulations that pilots for a commercial airline like Delta would have to meet. This forced Flytenow to shut down.
“The sharing economy is based on communication — it is about using technology to connect service providers to consumers. Flytenow is simply a communications hub; it connects pilots looking to share their flights with passengers interested in joining them,” said Jon Riches, the national litigation director at the Goldwater Institute and the attorney representing Flytenow. “In this case, the FAA has stopped pilots from using the Internet, and only the Internet, to communicate. The First Amendment does not tolerate this type of speech discrimination.”
The Goldwater Institute is arguing that the FAA’s decision violates the First Amendment rights of Flytenow and its pilot members.
The institute is also asking the court to decide that no deference is due when a government agency interprets a term — in this case “common carrier” — that is predominately defined in the common law, because deference is based on agency expertise, and courts, not agencies, have expertise on common law interpretation. This clarification in deference standards would make it harder for courts to simply defer to agencies when regulations are challenged, as is typically the standard now, institute officials explained.
“The government shouldn’t get a thumb on the scale when its decisions are challenged,” Riches said. “Courts exist to carefully examine unlawful government regulations, not to rubber stamp them.”
It would seem that the following needs some assistance in demonstrating the difference: “…because deference is based on agency expertise, and courts, not agencies, have expertise on common law interpretation.”
Telling the court that agency expertise and courts have expertise on common law interpretation and that agencies do not — this is self contradictory. I certainly hope this is not how this was presented to SCOTUS. It may well not make it out of “committee”.
While the above may make sense to lawyers, sometimes a bracketed or parenthetical short explanation of the difference, solves a lot of problems later.
Attorneys and Judges are not the only ones that read decisions and petitions of/to SCOTUS.
I know I can’t be the only one who is neither but yet reads decisions and the petitions and answers in and for some cases (particularly those that I have a personal interest in, which would be GA, Internet, and patents as examples).
Over regulated to the extreme.
I hope that we as pilots and passengers can get some relief from the FAA in this area. It seems common sense to allow, crazy the have to go to court to prove this point.
We are losing piolets at a unprecedented rate & the FAA is playing a power play. That ride sharing looks like a grate idea to interest people to flying, and to share the cost.
When case mentions “the faa”remember this interpretation of common carriage is basically one mans opinion i.e. Probably faa chief counsel…I think this action has an excellent chance to succeed .What called advertising vs communication is a free speech issue.None of the pilot members is holding out for carriage fee only cost sharing that the faa already allows…just a another example of FAA overreaching
It looks like a typical over-reaching of a government into the private
affairs of citizens to me.
Again there is some party telling what you can can not do.There is a law governing what you may charge.
Yes, I hope this case get’s a second look. It is the right thing to do.
Our government in this case the FAA, has some special need to meddle in all forms of a pilot’s life and beyond. They (the FAA) appear to have the Holier-than-Thou attitude and in No-way in hell is something New going to happen or come along unless they develop it.
Our country was built by people taking risks and not government oversight, regulations nor bureaucrats who sit in offices’ with no public to report to about the decisions they make. Please have the Supreme Court look at this again. There is only one law of the land, not the law of only the “FAA”.