Hopes To Facilitate Private Plane Partnerships

Last week, a group called the Aircraft Partnership Association (APA) launched a new program to help more pilots achieve their dream of aircraft ownership by using technology to facilitate forming private partnerships.

Of course, the concept of forming a partnership to share expenses is not new... but often, what starts as a great idea proves to be not entirely successful in the long run. The Association says often, trying to form a private partnership on an ad hoc basis rarely seems to get off the ground... and before too long, the dream of ownership fades.

To alleviate those problems -- and keep everyone involved happy, and flying -- APA uses web-based programs to help identify and match potential partners based on member profiles that include the type of aircraft desired, location, flying experience and more. The entire matching/selection process occurs on-line before potential partners ever meet.

"Trying to find suitable aircraft partners by posting a flyer at your local airport or on isolated websites is tremendously ineffective," said David A. Kruger, President of APA. "This is exactly why there aren’t more successful private partnerships."

For a relatively small annual fee -- $29 -- APA allows members to post their partnership profile on a searchable database, where other APA members can also search for like-minded aviators.

"We believe that the there are two keys to success," Kruger said. "First is to quickly build the membership database; every new member increases the odds of finding partners,” Kruger said. "Consequently, we’re offering a launch promotion of $10 off of our regular $29 annual membership; that’s a year membership for less than 4 gallons of fuel -- for every pilot interested in exploring how to share the total cost of ownership on any aircraft in any market.

"The second key is to create an inexpensive on-line forum to create and then manage the partnership," he concluded.

APA aims to launch new services later this year, geared toward aircraft flight scheduling, maintenance recordkeeping, bookkeeping and more.

FMI: www.theapa.com