AvioSharing: The Idea of Cost-Sharing for Pilots

Every product I've built started with a problem I observed firsthand. Aviation Infinity came from struggling with exam preparation as a student. Want To Be a Pilot came from aspiring pilots not knowing where to start. AvioSharing came from my own experience as a student pilot in 2015 — I needed to build flight hours, and flying was expensive. Sharing costs with other pilots was the obvious solution, and I built a platform for it. Seven years later, the problem is as relevant as ever, and I want to share the thinking behind it.

The Problem

Here's a number that most people outside aviation don't know: renting a small single-engine aircraft costs between 150 and 250 euros per hour. A pilot who wants to maintain proficiency needs to fly at least a few hours per month. That's 600 to 1,000 euros monthly, just to maintain the skills they spent tens of thousands of euros to acquire.

The result is predictable and tragic. Thousands of licensed pilots across Europe stop flying within a few years of getting their license. Not because they lost interest, not because they're not capable, but because they can't justify the ongoing cost. The license they worked so hard to earn becomes a certificate in a drawer.

I saw this pattern repeatedly through my work with Aviation Infinity and the broader pilot community. Students would complete their training, full of excitement about their flying career or hobby, and then slowly fade away as the financial reality set in. Within two years of getting their license, many had effectively stopped flying.

The Observation

The insight behind AvioSharing came from a simple observation at my local airfield. I'd see pilots flying alone on cross-country flights. The aircraft has four seats. The pilot is paying the full hourly rate. Three seats are empty.

At the same airfield, I'd see other pilots who would love to fly that same route but couldn't justify the cost of renting their own aircraft. If the first pilot had a passenger who shared the cost, both would benefit. The flying pilot reduces their hourly cost significantly. The passenger gets a flight experience at a fraction of the cost of renting their own aircraft.

Cost-sharing in aviation isn't a new concept. Aviation regulations in most jurisdictions explicitly allow pilots to share the direct costs of a flight with their passengers. The pilot can't profit from the flight, that would require a commercial license, but they can split the costs equally with the people on board.

The problem isn't legal or conceptual. It's logistical. How does a pilot flying from Milan to Nice this Saturday find another pilot or aviation enthusiast who wants to make that trip? Currently, it happens through word of mouth, local flying club notice boards, and informal WhatsApp groups. It's inefficient, limited to your personal network, and completely unscalable.

The AvioSharing Concept

AvioSharing is a platform that connects pilots with cost-sharing passengers for general aviation flights. A pilot posts their planned flight: departure point, destination, date, time, aircraft type, and cost per seat. Passengers browse available flights and book a seat.

The concept is similar to BlaBlaCar for driving, but with important differences that reflect the unique characteristics of aviation.

Safety is paramount. Unlike car sharing, where virtually anyone can drive, aviation cost-sharing requires the pilot to hold a valid license and the aircraft to be properly maintained and insured. AvioSharing verifies pilot credentials and requires confirmation of appropriate insurance coverage.

Weather dependency changes the dynamic. Unlike car trips that happen rain or shine, flights are subject to weather minimums. The platform needs to handle the reality that flights are often delayed or cancelled due to weather, without creating frustration for passengers who've planned around the flight.

Regulatory compliance must be built into the platform's economics. The pilot can't profit from the flight. The cost shared with passengers must represent a genuine pro-rata share of the direct operating costs. AvioSharing's pricing model is designed to ensure compliance: the platform calculates the cost share based on the aircraft's published operating costs and the number of occupied seats.

Why Now

Several trends are converging that make this the right time for AvioSharing.

The post-COVID surge in pilot training means there are more newly licensed pilots than ever, and these pilots are the most vulnerable to the cost barrier. They have the least experience, the highest need for regular flying to build proficiency, and often the tightest budgets.

The success of cost-sharing platforms in other transportation sectors (BlaBlaCar, ride-sharing) has normalized the concept. People understand the idea of sharing transportation costs with strangers. Applying it to aviation is a logical extension.

The general aviation community is increasingly connected digitally. When I started in aviation tech years ago, many pilots were resistant to digital platforms. That's changing, especially among younger pilots who expect to manage their flying lives through apps.

And from a personal perspective, my existing presence in the aviation market through Aviation Infinity and the Want To Be a Pilot community gives AvioSharing a distribution advantage. I'm not building for strangers. I'm building for a community I've been serving for years.

The Design Challenges

Designing AvioSharing has surfaced several unique challenges that don't exist in standard marketplace design.

Trust is multidimensional. In a typical marketplace, trust is about transaction reliability: will the seller deliver what they promised? In AvioSharing, trust has a safety dimension. Passengers need to trust that the pilot is competent and the aircraft is safe. Pilots need to trust that passengers understand the realities of small aircraft flying (it's louder, bumpier, and more weather-dependent than airline flying).

I'm designing a trust system that includes verified pilot credentials, aircraft documentation, passenger reviews, and pilot reviews. But I'm also building educational content into the passenger experience: before booking their first flight, passengers go through a brief orientation about what to expect. This sets appropriate expectations and reduces the chance of a negative experience driven by unrealistic assumptions.

Pricing has hard regulatory constraints. Unlike most marketplaces where pricing is set by the seller and optimized by the marketplace, AvioSharing's pricing must comply with aviation cost-sharing regulations. This means the platform calculates the per-seat cost based on actual aircraft operating costs, and neither the pilot nor the platform can mark it up. The marketplace's revenue comes from a service fee, not from the transaction spread.

Cancellation policies need to account for weather. A rigid cancellation policy doesn't work when flights are regularly cancelled for safety reasons. A completely flexible policy invites abuse. I'm designing a weather-aware cancellation system that distinguishes between weather cancellations (full refund, no penalty) and personal cancellations (subject to the cancellation policy based on timing).

The Technical Foundation

AvioSharing is built on the same stack I use across my products: Next.js, TypeScript, MongoDB, and Tailwind CSS, deployed on Vercel. This consistency isn't laziness; it's leverage. Every hour I've invested in learning this stack deeply pays dividends across every product.

The unique technical elements for AvioSharing include integration with aviation weather APIs to provide real-time weather information for planned routes, a route mapping system that displays planned flights on a map and helps passengers find flights near their desired route, and a cost calculation engine that uses published aircraft performance data to compute accurate cost shares.

The Bigger Vision

AvioSharing isn't just about saving money on individual flights. It's about keeping pilots flying.

A pilot who can share costs flies more often. A pilot who flies more often is a safer, more proficient pilot. A pilot who stays active in the community is more likely to pursue additional ratings, volunteer for aviation organizations, and inspire the next generation of pilots.

The general aviation community is shrinking in many countries because of cost barriers. If AvioSharing can reduce the effective cost of flying by 50% to 75% for participating pilots, it could meaningfully slow or reverse that trend.

That's the idea worth building for. Not a marketplace that takes a cut of transactions, but a platform that keeps a community alive. The business model has to work, of course, and I believe it does. But the motivation goes beyond revenue. Every pilot who keeps flying because AvioSharing made it affordable is a small victory for an industry I care deeply about.

I'm excited to share more about AvioSharing as development progresses. For now, it's an idea crystallizing into a product. And in my experience, that's the most exciting stage of building.