AIRNAV not publishing fuel prices...

wrote in
:

Andrew Gideon wrote:
: 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.

I sure hope not. It's pretty difficult to find good aviation
information without
paying a nominal but extremely annoying "subscription fee." From the
cheap-******* user's point of view, I *despise* having to pay for
nominal services for nominal costs... it's a matter of principle. If
they start charging a user subscription fee, then there will
immediately be 5-10 copycat sites vying for the $20/year users. It
nominalizes the system.

I'd venture to say that airnav is the de-factor standard for
cross-country
fuel-stop planning. Having a nominal listing fee for fuel price makes
good sense for FBO's... provided it's reasonable. If there's 10 sites
like it, they'll all suck. Darwin takes care, and airnav has "won."

-Cory


There is competition for AirNav's fuel price data base. Unfortunately, it
is currently a subscription service, but they intend to convert to a free
service if they can find a sponsor.

The service is Fillup Flyer Fuel Finder, http://www.fillupflyer.com

Although I use AirNav instead of Fillup Flyer, I did look into both
services several years ago. The major difference I noticed at that time
was that AirNav fuel prices were provided voluntarily by pilots who take
the time to report what they either pay or observe at an airport, while
Fillup Flyer called 6,000 FBOs every month.

Since the airports where I do most of my flying (San Francisco Bay area)
were very well represented in AirNav (most fuel prices were less than 30
days old and all FBOs seemed to be included), I never signed up with Fillup
Flyer, but did get some of their sample reports.

If AirNav stops listing ALL fuel prices and only lists those that
advertise, then their value will be diminished and it will be time to
revisit Fillup Flyer, especially if they become a free service to the user.

A quick look at Fillup Flyer web pages today showed that the current prices
are no membership & $10/report or $24.95 annual membership & $5/report.
This is using the internet. For a higher price per report, you can obtain
reports via fax or 800#.

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)

"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)

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?

I've wondered about that myself. Actually, I've always wondered how Paulo
has survived putting negative comments on his website, without getting sued.

There are some pretty graphic and acidic posts about some businesses.
Someone with a mouth-piece and deep pockets could make Paulo's life very
uncomfortable.

Right after we bought the hotel, I found a bad review of our place on
AirNav. It was, of course (!), from before we bought the place, and was a
really nasty one, written by a guy who claimed that he was "told by a
line-guy to avoid the place."

Paulo of course removed it from his site when he heard we were the new
owners, but THAT'S the kind of third-hand slander that could really get him
in hot water, IMHO.

I feel for Paulo. He's operated this website full-time for a couple of
years, basically "on the house." Now that he's trying to actually make a
buck, everyone is down his throat. I say if an FBO is too damned cheap to
pay for their listing, that alone says enough to me that I will avoid the
place.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

(Victor) writes:

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

I've appreciated Airnav and have been sad to see the recent changes.

I've been thinking of building an interface to Airnav that would allow
people to submit prices/comments both to Airnav *and* a public
repository simultaneously. (I'd provide an initial interface to it
but everyone else would be welcome to the data.) Is there interest?

--kyler

(Ben Jackson) writes:

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.

Yup, that's a good summary of my feelings.

I'm also reluctant to put much effort into maintaining a proprietary
resource. I think Airnav comments are very valuable and I've entered
my share, but I don't like the idea of putting my effort into a
database I don't control. (That goes for $100 Hamburger, Aeroplanner,
AOPA, ... too.)

I firmly believe that a public database to which everyone can
contribute and from which everyone can draw is the answer. I'm quite
willing to host a version of it.

Anyone know if the basic FBO info that Airnav uses is public in some
form? I haven't noticed it in the ATA-100 data.

--kyler

"Kyler Laird" wrote in message
...
(Ben Jackson) writes:

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.

Yup, that's a good summary of my feelings.

I'm also reluctant to put much effort into maintaining a proprietary
resource. I think Airnav comments are very valuable and I've entered
my share, but I don't like the idea of putting my effort into a
database I don't control. (That goes for $100 Hamburger, Aeroplanner,
AOPA, ... too.)

I firmly believe that a public database to which everyone can
contribute and from which everyone can draw is the answer. I'm quite
willing to host a version of it.

Anyone know if the basic FBO info that Airnav uses is public in some
form? I haven't noticed it in the ATA-100 data.


Hey folks! It's a free market.

Build your own web site and do it YOUR way. Hell, there's a lot of web
development types in here already.

(John Galban) wrote in
om:

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 think you hit the nail on the head. First of all, I have high praise
for the good things that Paulo and AirNav have done for the aviation
community. User feedback (good and bad) is something you rarely see
and helps with flight planning.

I wouldn't have a problem if Paulo decides to put small advertising
banners at the top of the page, after all, many other websites have
done this and running the site isn't free. Removing certain FBOs takes
AirNav down to the level of corporate sites (such as Millionaire,
Signature, etc.) where you'll see nothing but fluff.

Again, truely sad.

--
John Godwin
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT from email address)

In article , Kyler Laird
wrote:

(Victor) writes:

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

I've appreciated Airnav and have been sad to see the recent changes.

I've been thinking of building an interface to Airnav that would allow
people to submit prices/comments both to Airnav *and* a public
repository simultaneously. (I'd provide an initial interface to it
but everyone else would be welcome to the data.) Is there interest?

--kyler

or maybe let people post to rec.aviation.products, and provide
a focused "google". Did that make any sense?

--
Bob Noel

Kyler Laird writes:

I firmly believe that a public database to which everyone can
contribute and from which everyone can draw is the answer. I'm quite
willing to host a version of it.

Hosting is one thing; developing and maintaining it are another. I'm
all for public and open, but, like the open source movement, I wonder
how the workers get compensated.

Bob Noel writes:

I've been thinking of building an interface to Airnav that would allow
people to submit prices/comments both to Airnav *and* a public
repository simultaneously. (I'd provide an initial interface to it
but everyone else would be welcome to the data.) Is there interest?

or maybe let people post to rec.aviation.products, and provide
a focused "google". Did that make any sense?

It makes a lot of sense to me and I'd normally be one of the first to
suggest a Usenet-based solution. This time, however, it's not so clear
that it's the best distribution medium. I can imagine collecting the
prices and comments from posted messages, but it could get ugly fast -
especially prices, if they're kept reasonably current. I like to
encourage the use of Google, but I even worry about it being a
proprietary database.

I think it would be great, however, if someone built a mechanism to
post comments and even significant price changes back to Usenet.

Of course one of my biggest concerns about any such community-managed
system is authentication. I'd like all comments to be signed in some
form with a trust network so that we can easily separate the signal
from the noise. I have ideas for that.

--kyler