Originally Posted by
Fly-by-Wife
European court aide rules Uber is a transport company - BBC News
I wonder if this ruling will have an impact on wingly and other flight sharing sites. Would wingly want to continue if they have to have an AOC to operate? At best they would have to take vigorous action to show that none of the flights advertised could be considered as transportation, and even that might not be enough.
Still, it's not definitive yet, although it's hard to see any court going against the decision.
FBW
I find it hard to see how this affects the cost sharing sites such as Wingly and Skyuber so long as they adhere to the cost sharing rules specified by the CAA and EASA.
There is no similarity between the operation of Uber, which is a commercial booking service for taxis that are plying for hire and reward, and operating as subcontractors under commercial insurance , (although I believe there may be litigation running to establish if they are really employees??), and a flight sharing intermediary such as Skyuber, Wingly or indeed the Seats Available / Wanted thread on this forum that simply matches pilots and riders wanting to share the costs of a flight.
Of course, if one of the cost sharing sites did cross the line away from facilitating genuine cost sharing into running a taxi service, that would be another matter and would anyway have been illegal before this latest ruling.
The choice of the name "Skyuber" by one of the ride sharing sites is unfortunate, as it gives the impression that the operation is similar to Uber which it is not.