The biggest takeaway for me is that, even in the US, most airports are not profitable.
So having profitable airfields here is just a dream. Small airfields are infrastructure, or they are not.
Lugano could probably be with its biz jet traffic, but I don’t really know.
Antonio wrote:
Personally I am biased against subsidies
Me too, as long as we don’t measure with different standards. The EU rules against subsidizing airport infrastructure would only be fair if we stopped subsidizing roads, railroads, public transport, ports and any other transportation tomorrow. I can’t see a single politician being elected with this program. So why do we accept this nonsense as fact for airports?
I think we should see this as an opportunity for a EU wide grant fund modeled after the FAA model, where an airport accepting the grant money is bound to certain conditions. For starters, non-discriminatory access to aircraft without mandatory handling and with fees commensurate to aircraft size.
Devil’s advocate here, but does it matter if a few non-viable regional airports go bust in a country as small and compact as Switzerland?
They are going down the pan precisely because nobody is using them.
Surely for a land-locked country barely twice the area of Wales it makes sense to concentrate public resources on two or three airports and for the GA community to switch to more capable aircraft which can operate without public subsidy from fields and back yards?
The key regardless of ownership is cutting cost to the bone. In the US system many public airports are just a strip of asphalt, a row of hangars and a self serve fuel pump. No more and no less than actually needed, and not forced to be so by regulation. Obviously, busy airports will attract more investment, and return more on that investment, but its not actually necessary for low volume utilization. Why people think an airport must have people, follow me trucks, offices etc continues to be a mystery to me.
An associated mystery to me is why people think a very short strip of asphalt used by traveling aircraft is ‘subsidized’, a contentious issue, but the term never comes up when discussing a nearby road hundreds of times longer. A car is just an aircraft that can’t fly, and must taxi the entire way to its destination on publicly funded taxiways.
Jacko wrote:
Surely for a land-locked country barely twice the area of Wales it makes sense to concentrate public resources on two or three airports and for the GA community to switch to more capable aircraft which can operate without public subsidy from fields and back yards?
As a mountain rated pilot, you are certainly aware that we have a few mountains in Switzerland. So the pure size comparison doesn’t tell you much about the viability and practicability of other means of transport. If you close Lugano, that means that the region will depend on airports in Italy for their air transportation means.
It really depends on how you personally see air travel in the grand scheme of things. Is it a way to get anywhere in Europe in a timeframe that permits having a meeting / inspecting a business site / doing something within a day or two? Then you also need to see the other end. If you’re visiting an island or a remote location, then an airplane will be pretty much your only option. If you’re now forced to base it 2.5 hours away from where you live, it makes this no longer viable. Yes, the travel time to that airplane can be justifiably done by car or train, but the total travel time to such locations will no longer work out to anything useful for anyone who happens to live in a region without airfield access.
Rwy20 wrote:
If you close Lugano, that means that the region will depend on airports in Italy for their air transportation means.
And that’s the rub. Before Covid-19 many people would probably have said ‘ah shucks, Malpensa is only a short drive away’. Post-Covid-19 I’m not so sure anymore about that attitude. This current pandemic will reshape our world in many ways we haven’t even begun to think about.
Reading the article @Peter linked, it appears that the airport was in part financed by the canton of Ticino. While I know that Switzerland has a relatively weak central government and is a very decentralized country – is there no federal interest in keep the only IFR capable airport south of the Alps open?
Airborne_Again wrote:
Norway is part of the EEA and has to abide by all EU regulations relating to the European Single Market. Or so I thought.
Norway has to relate to the EEA agreements, not to EU regulations. Besides, it’s not subsidy, more of a monopoly if anything. The airports we are talking about are all owned by Avinor. Avinor is owned by the state, but is self financed (through the larger airports mainly, as well as en route charges).
LeSving wrote:
Norway has to relate to the EEA agreements, not to EU regulations.
And doesn’t the EEA agreements say that Norway generally has to adopt EU regulations concerning the single European market?
Silvaire wrote:
In the US system many public airports are just a strip of asphalt, a row of hangars and a self serve fuel pump. No more and no less than actually needed, and not forced to be so by regulation. Obviously, busy airports will attract more investment, and return more on that investment, but its not actually necessary for low volume utilization. Why people think an airport must have people, follow me trucks, offices etc continues to be a mystery to me.
For once I completely agree with you, Silvaire. Most GA airfields would not actually need more than what you described, a strip of asphalt (or grass even), parking space for aircraft, some hangars and a fuel pump. The more traffic an airfield recieves, the more investment will follow, so you get additional niceties like restaurants, hotels, AFIS / ATC, fire services, public transport access etc., all of which might be beneficial but not strictly necessary.
In the age of GPS approaches, even an airport with instrument approaches would not necessarily need to be manned, but AFAIK most regulators see that differently.
MedEwok wrote:
In the age of GPS approaches, even an airport with instrument approaches would not necessarily need to be manned, but AFAIK most regulators see that differently.
Luckily not the FAA. There are plenty of non-towered airfields with a GPS approach here. Some even have – shock, horror! – CAT. From a European regulator’s viewpoint we should have mid-air collisions (no Flugleiter!) , burning wrecks on the ground (no fire cover ! Horror!) and generally airplanes falling out of the sky left, right and center. Strangely, that’s not the case…
