Good riddance.<p>They tried to reboot a few months back but the damage had already been done. The people who really wanted this sort of business to succeed (including myself) had already tried to embrace them, but got burned too much in the past to risk giving them another shot. My guess is the only potential market going forward were people who randomly came across FlightCar when searching for rental cars. My money is on this being an acquihire. The business failed.<p>(I previously wrote an open letter to FlightCar, based on my personal experiences, which also summed up the general consensus amongst everyone who had tried it in the past: <a href="http://watilo.com/open-letter-to-flightcar" rel="nofollow">http://watilo.com/open-letter-to-flightcar</a>)
Surprised no one has mentioned how the cards were stacked against them from a bureaucratic level. I understand the airport authorities help run their operations from what they get from rental car fees. But Flightcar was clearly treated in an heavy handed way by different municipalities. That's very difficult to overcome.<p>I only used them at SFO and the rules kept changing underneath them. They had to change locations multiple times and went from curbside service to being treated as an off-airport vendor. It's all the bloat and corruption of the taxi industry PLUS local municipalities getting their cut and fighting to keep it. That was going to be a very difficult terrain to overcome even if the customer service was perfect.<p>Overall, I was probably typical. When I could avoid the airtrain with their blackcar I was willing to put up with the off-airport location. As soon as I had to take the airtrain to the rental car facility and then hop in the blackcar, the modestly lower prices with more variable car quality was no longer worth it. Curbside pickup made a lot of sense. Until the SFO authority regulated it toward their own bloated interests.
"We thank all of our customers for being a part of our journey, and we look forward to a new future."<p>There it is.<p><a href="https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow">https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/</a>
Flightcar failed, but was it fundamental to the market, or just this specific company?<p>I wonder if there's a successful business to be done in this space. I'm not convinced the fundamental economics work -- most business travelers value convenience and lack of failure (and are responsible for most high-margin, low-hassle rentals); families or individual non-business <25yo, etc. are more likely to heavily use and thus damage a car.<p>It also seems a bit crazy to rent out a personal car unless you don't particularly care about that car, or are very confident the rental agency can detect and fix any problems. Generally, even with great maintenance, ex-rental cars do not do great on resale compared to single-driver cars.<p>This would work great for 100% self-driving cars, but there's no particular reason for individuals to own and rent out the self driving cars -- those could just be owned by a fleet provider who can borrow at 0-2%.
I used FlightCar for the first time literally last night. I signed up right before I boarded and getting to the FlightCar location ended up being decently convoluted but I did get a pretty nice Mazda for the weekend. This morning I received a 'Welcome to FlightCar' email and two hours later a follow up 'Update from FlightCar' thanking me for being a loyal customer and letting me know that they are shutting down
I used Relay Rides in SF a few times for super low budget rentals ($20-35/day). It worked really well there and pickup was probably less of a hassle than it would have been to go to the airport. Looks like there's been a rebrand: <a href="https://turo.com/" rel="nofollow">https://turo.com/</a>
The "also today" choice of wording is odd. Generally this seems like a straight acquihire, startup gaining attention to get bought by a bigger company and exit operations. But the Forbes article (<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2016/07/14/flightcar-to-shut-down-sell-technology-to-mercedes-benz/#3ce7c3c83f3a" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2016/07/14/flightca...</a>) makes it sound like it's a business that's been failing.<p>So I guess the question is: Shutting down because it was acquired, or selling off value because it's shutting down? I guess the answer lies in how much FlightCar was sold for.
I'm sad to see them go. Used them near exclusively for my past 2 dozen trips (about a dozen SFO, about a dozen OAK).<p>The rental car experience in general is ripe for disruption- flightcar was not perfect but the incumbents were and are just atrocious, from surly, conniving employees every step of the way to miserable shuttle/train rides to out-of-the-way and monopoly-priced oceans of asphalt.<p>If FC ran out of room for cars, they could always have charged a discounted rate for parking instead of offering it for free.<p>I guess I'll give Turo a try next time.
With all this discussion on car rental options. I'm surprised no one has mentioned SilverCar. Has anyone used them?
The airport rental business is indeed one that needs major overhaul. If any of you are curious, there are some fascinating case studies out there on enterprise and how they succeeded by avoiding the airports.
Not surprising, they were competing against Uber.<p>So many people listed their cars on FlightCar's monthly parking plan (park long-term for free at their lot near SFO, and occasionally they'll rent your car out) to avoid paying SF parking costs (~$400/month) that they had to force everybody to get their cars out of their "salvage yard."<p>When I arrived at FlightCar HQ, I saw a lot full of unused cars the day I showed up to pick up my car once and for all. Everyone just abused the system.<p>It was a pretty sweet deal for a while:<p>I was profiting off my car while parking it for free for over a year in San Francisco.