Last Mile in General Aviation—Courtesy Vehicles and Other Forms of Ground Transportation (2020)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

A P P E N D I X H Courtesy Car Information Sheet H-1 My insurance provider will not cover an airport courtesy car. • If your airport is covered by the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust or another similar agency, your courtesy car is most likely covered the same as any other automobile owned by the city for both damage to the courtesy car and liability claims resulting in bodily injury or property damage to a third party. Contact your Insurance Agent or Insurance Underwriter. • Many insurance companies will also insure a vehicle for use as a courtesy car by issuing a standalone policy. The Airport or FBO states they cannot get insurance for a courtesy car. • Many insurance companies will insure a vehicle for use as a courtesy car by issuing a standalone policy. My insurance provider recommends or requires a copy of the driver’s license and insurance. • A copy of the driver’s license will help ensure the user meets a minimum set of requirements for that particular state to drive a vehicle and provide information to submit to insurance in case of any claims. • It is unlikely the user will have a copy of their insurance while flying. However, a written agreement identifying the user’s insurance as “Primary” will most likely be sufficient. The owner’s insurance will provide excess coverage. My insurance provider recommends or requires an agreement to allow use of the courtesy car. • A written agreement is generally required to make the driver’s personal automobile insurance primary. • Please reference the various sample agreements available. My City has a policy that prohibits others from driving City vehicles. • Work with City officials to include an exception for this type of vehicle. • Explore the option of having an entity on the field or within the community provide a vehicle as a courtesy car. The airport should consider an agreement stating each entity’s responsibility and insurance requirements.

H-2 Last Mile in General Aviation—Courtesy Vehicles and Other Forms of Ground Transportation • Develop an agreement stating each entity’s responsibility. What if the vehicle breaks down or is involved in an accident while the user has it? • List out a procedure within the agreement on how to handle these types of scenarios or state where it can be found. • Have a copy of the procedure staged in the car with your contact information. • It should be considered within an agreement that the Airport is not responsible to provide alternate transportation. However, you may want to accommodate the user if you can. I am worried about parking tickets, moving violations, or having the vehicle towed. • The driver of the vehicle is responsible for moving violations. • Include language in an agreement stating that all fees and expenses charged while in the possession of the user will be the responsibility of the user and billed accordingly. Should I put any limitations (distance or length) on the use of the vehicle? • If there is a concern that pilots would overuse or abuse the courtesy car, distance or time limitations may be necessary. • If either limitation is exceeded, there may be a charge or additional fees. What if the user requests to keep the car overnight? • This would be up to each entity to decide if this is an acceptable practice. • If you choose to allow this, you may want to consider including a specific return time in the morning as limitation of an agreement. Who would be responsible for vehicle maintenance? • This depends on the type of maintenance that is required. Routine maintenance would be the airport’s responsibility. • Developing a maintenance program for the vehicle may eliminate breakdowns. This may also go to show that the airport was not at fault for any accidents due to maintenance issues. Who is responsible for filling the vehicle with fuel? • Refilling the vehicle may be included as part of an agreement or accept funds from the user for the airport to refill it. • Or just ask for a donation to go towards fueling. The only vehicle available is the airport operations or maintenance vehicle. • The FAA offers airports access to Federal Surplus equipment. Many times, there are federal vehicles available for little or no cost to airports. Contact your FAA Airport District Office (ADO) for more details. • It would be up to each entity as to how to develop guidelines for when a vehicle would be allowed to be used. Source: AirportAdmin, LLC, Tiedeman, P.F. A third-party entity such as a car dealership or rental car agency will provide a car for a fee.