How Many Members per Aircraft Can a Flying Club Support?

Most flying clubs can support about 10 to 12 members per aircraft. AOPA's Guide to Starting a Flying Club calls a ratio of around 10 to 1 very workable, and adds that even then the airplane will spend most of its time in the hangar. AVweb's piece on keeping clubs viable puts the range at 7 to 12 members per airplane: below 7 the cost per member gets prohibitive, and above 12 the club officers they spoke with said scheduling problems start showing up.

Those numbers are averages, though, and your club isn't average. A club full of retirees who fly Tuesday mornings can carry far more members per airplane than one full of working pilots who all want Saturday. The number that matters is how many weekend blocks your members want against how many the airplane has, and you can work it out in about ten minutes.

1. Count flying hours, not members

Headcount is a poor measure on its own, because members fly wildly different amounts. Avemco tells the story of the Twenty-One Flyers Club in Connecticut, which ran 13 members on one Cessna 172M. That worked, Avemco says, because only five or six of them were truly active pilots. The rest flew occasionally or rarely.

Insurers think the same way. Avemco prices club policies on active members, which it defines as anyone who has flown a club aircraft in the past six months, sorted into groups to set the premium. A member who pays dues and never flies costs the schedule nothing. A member who flies every Saturday morning costs it a lot.

2. A worked example: one 172, how many members?

Here's the arithmetic for a single Skyhawk. Every input below is an example. Swap in your own numbers, and if your scheduling software can export last year's reservations, use those instead of guesses.

1. Hours per member. The average member flies 3 Hobbs hours a month, in flights of about 1.5 hours. That's 2 flights per member per month.
2. Block length. Each flight ties up a 3-hour block on the schedule once you add preflight, fueling, the flight, putting the airplane away, and a little slack before the next booking. Call it three usable daylight blocks per day: morning, midday, afternoon.
3. Weekend supply. A month has about 8.7 weekend days, so roughly 26 weekend blocks. If one weekend day in four is lost to weather, about 20 usable weekend blocks remain.
4. Weekend demand. If 60 percent of members' flights need to happen on a weekend because they work weekdays, each member wants 1.2 weekend blocks a month.
5. Capacity. 20 blocks divided by 1.2 is about 16 members at a completely full weekend calendar. Nobody wants a calendar that full, since members need some choice of time and Saturday mornings go first. At 80 percent full you're at about 13 members.

Thirteen members flying 3 hours each comes to 39 Hobbs hours a month, out of roughly 720 hours in the month. That's the AOPA guide's point in numbers: the airplane sits most of the time and the club is still close to full, because what runs out first is weekend daylight. Those same 13 members only use about 10 of the roughly 49 weekday blocks left after weather.

How sensitive is that number?

Very. Keep everything else the same and change only how much members fly:

• Members averaging 2 hours a month: weekend demand drops to 0.8 blocks each, and the same airplane carries about 20 members at 80 percent full.
• Members averaging 5 hours a month: demand rises to 2 blocks each, and capacity falls to about 8 members.
• Trips change it too. A Friday-to-Sunday trip takes six or more weekend blocks, close to a third of the month's usable weekend supply in this example. AOPA's sample operating rules handle this with a two-hour-per-day minimum on multi-day trips, and TSS Flying Club caps trips at 10 days unless its board approves a longer one.

So "10 per airplane" can really be anywhere from 8 to 20 depending on who your members are. Run it for your own club before you cap membership or go shopping for a second airplane.

3. What members per aircraft does to dues

Fixed costs are where adding members pays off. Say the 172 costs the club $2,600 a month whether it flies or not: hangar, insurance, the annual set-aside, subscriptions. Split across the membership, that's:

• 8 members: $325 each per month
• 10 members: $260
• 13 members: $200
• 16 members: $162.50
• 20 members: $130

Going from 13 to 20 members saves each person $70 a month. In the example above, it also pushes weekend demand to 24 blocks against 20 that exist. Plenty of members would rather pay the $70 and actually get the airplane on a Saturday. Hourly costs like fuel and reserves don't change with membership, since each member still pays for the hours they fly.

To see both sides at once, the free Club Dues Modeler takes your member count, aircraft, dues, hourly rate, average hours per member, monthly fixed costs, and hourly operating cost. Try moving members up and down and watch the surplus and the hours per airplane change together.

4. Over capacity: cap membership or add an airplane?

Some signs show up before anyone complains. Weekend blocks fill weeks ahead. The same few members hold most Saturday mornings. Members fly less than they used to. AOPA's guide suggests a membership officer who keeps an active waiting list, and a waiting list is the cheap first answer. It holds the ratio where it is while you decide on the expensive one.

A second airplane doubles fixed costs and only helps if the extra members it supports really fly. The example club above uses about a fifth of its weekday blocks, so before buying, check whether the members you have would shift some flying to weekdays. Rate discounts for weekday bookings, or a retiree or shift-worker membership tier, can move flying off Saturday for far less than a second annual and insurance policy.

Moving the example club from 39 to 50 hours a month at $145 an hour is $1,595 a month the airplane you already own could earn. Know that number before you sign for another one.