Within the last few years, a nice toll road was built locally, apparently funded by offshore investors. They gradually raised the toll, nobody used the new road, and they went bankrupt. Apparently they are now selling the road to local government for a fraction of their original investment.
Its not just private airports, its any transportation infrastructure. Unless investors are not competing with government in running any form of transport infrastructure, they will not survive because government will beat them - government can (and does!) lose money indefinitely and so government roads & trains will beat corporately run airports. The solution is for government to plan and build a transport infrastructure to serve the community, including airports, and let companies and individuals run the non-competing businesses served by the infrastructure, and forming the community itself.
If modern EU & UK politics don't allow public airports, I think remote grass strips charging modest fees are probably going to be it. YMMV.
GA is never going to be part of a transport infrastructure in most of the UK. There may be other parts of Europe where things are different, but the variability of the weather and the size of the country are very much against it here. There are currently 20,000 private pilots, and this number is falling. It would be irresponsible of the government to subsidise smaller airfields at the expense of roads and railways, which are used by many millions of people.
As for publicly funded airports... Many of the 'problem' airports here are local airports that have been upgraded to cater for budget airlines, and although they're privately run they sometimes have had injections of cash in the form of development grants. They upgrade their facilities, then upgrade their prices to match. No matter that most light aircraft don't need the additional security or ATC services that have been installed for the benefit of the big jets.
Farmers fairly often have an entrepreneurial spirit, and if it were practical to make more money by setting aside 500m x 20m (1 hectare) of land for a runway than by growing crops on it (average rent £140 a year), then many would. Would it be so bad if most GA was relegated to farm strips? I can think of far worse things that might happen. But I think it would be more productive to campaign for a supportive regulatory environment (e.g. a relaxing of the 28 day rule, a change in status of airfields from brownfield to greenfield sites) than to call for a big-government approach.
If you changed the planning rules so that you only needed planning permission if you had hangarage/parking for 5 aircraft or fewer, and liability insurance was affordable, I think you'd get grass strips popping up all over the place.
I've never run an airport but have been in business since 1978 (in fact the other day I realised I have somehow managed to never have a full-time job working for somebody else, since leaving Univ 
) but I struggle to understand what is so expensive about running a GA airport.
Well, apart from the obvious which is the payroll.
Many of the 'problem' airports here are local airports that have been upgraded to cater for budget airlines
That bit is highly relevant.
For GA, non-AOC, you don't need a fire crew. I believe you need a Land Rover, painted red, with a WW2 fire extinguisher on the back of it, and a "man" nominally assigned to drive it. This is in essence what I see at a number of airfields in the UK.
A few years ago I went to a Department for Transport seminar on GA and the Minister herself said that according to their research no GA airport fire crew has ever saved anybody's life, since WW2.
Why, is fairly obvious. If you crash properly enough to catch fire, you all die long before any fire crew can get to you. If you crash off-airport, they can't get to you anyway (for ages) because the fence usually means they have to drive a very long way round.
The problem is that airport managers mostly want to be running a "proper airport" i.e. one with jets. They all watched the great movies with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and more recently stuff like this which make the business look romantic and glamorous, and they think they will mix with the film stars, etc....
And if they can get a scheduled service that brings in a lot of money.
The problem is that the law then forces to jack up your fixed costs massively. When Plymouth airport went bust, it reportedly had 56 employees. 56!!!!!!! That is about 50 more than a GA airfield needs, for day+evening opening. The cafe could be a franchise anyway. Plymouth lost the scheduled business a while before; they should have downsized their massive fixed costs fast.
They had ATC, which is always very expensive because of the legal requirements for working hours and breaks, etc. But the scheduled services also jack up the fire crew costs massively. My guess is that the minimum fire crew cost is about £1 million a year, to be legal for any paying-passenger ops. One cannot just get them all to man the pumps or sell cakes, because they need a minimum # to be ready for "action".
My little airport had, at one time, a fire facility big enough for 150-seat airliners. The runway is 18m wide, and (depending on whether you read the markings on it) is about 800-1000m long. The then manager obtained a consultant's report which said a BAE 146 can land there... It nearly got closed once the local council (which still owns the freehold) discovered what was going on. It's still going and seems to be OK for now but as always there are concerns.
It can work in places with an exceptional catchment area and plenty of wealth. Gloucestershire EGBJ makes it work, with very clever and pragmatic management, but (especially with Bristol just having shut) they have a good area which is flush with money. And they have the commercial property portfolio which is also essential for such a high fixed cost operation.
Farmers fairly often have an entrepreneurial spirit, and if it were practical to make more money by setting aside 500m x 20m (1 hectare) of land for a runway than by growing crops on it (average rent £140 a year), then many would
Very true but you need more than 500m. Most GA types which can go any distance can't operate from 500m grass, and most pilots of pricey hardware won't operate from grass unless they are desperate.
In fact 400-500m is fairly easy. The UK is covered with ~400m patches and many farmers are very happy to talk. It can take a while to locate one with a farm building which can take the plane and also have the legally-required (to avoid getting done under "change of use" regs) tractor parked there 
I have a farmer up the road from here, very keen to diversify, 700m x 20m no problem, some other great stuff like old maps showing a building next to it (rebuild that for a hangar). The catch is 60+ ft trees and power lines at both ends. OK for a TB20 with very little in it... of course it would be grass only so would need money thrown at it (mole drained, etc).
What is very hard to find is say 1000m in one piece, because farmers have been dividing up the land for ages. Often you get two adjacent 500m fields but there is a hedge between them, but this cannot be removed. Well, not overtly and not quickly, and there are groups of people who walk around the countryside checking for hedge removals and they report them. It can be done but it's a long term project.
For "useful" operation you need ~1000m of runway and hangarage. Hangarage in particular directly controls the basing of higher-value aircraft. Most such owners will rather drive for 2hrs to a place with a hard runway and hangarage - Lydd EGMD is a great example which almost needs a helicopter to get to
People operating types which can easily go from 400-500m grass don't usually have much of a problem finding somewhere to put it. But few of those have any utility value. A Cessna 182 is one of the few good examples.
The problem the UK has is that the planning regs do not really distinguish between a permission for runway and hangars, and a permission to build a commercial or a housing estate. This means every airfield is watched by property sharks, and is worth far more dead than alive. Those that are open are open only because the owner doesn't need the money, but when he dies, the kids are rarely interested in aviation....
I believe that eventually all present GA-accessible airports will disappear to the property sharks, and the future will lie in "syndicated" airfields, where a number of well funded aircraft owners get together and instead of blowing £50k on avionics eye candy upgrades they pool it together and spend say £100k forcing a planning application all the way through the legal machine, all the way to a DofE enquiry with barrister representation.
Pick a site near a major road, but away from towns etc. Build a 1000m x 20m hard runway (cost probably well under £1M, if limited below 5700kg MTOW) and hangarage. 1200m will do most light jets too.
The alternative is covert green-plastic reinforcement. This would be about £200k for a 1000mx20m runway. That is used at a few places (none of whom will discuss it openly) and it works very well. The locals will find out of course, and I don't see it hugely affecting the planning application. The people who currently use that stuff are mostly operating under the "28 day" system where you have to keep your head down for 10 years, which is not viable for a proper setup with hangarage etc.
There is no reason why this would not work. The problem is that most people in GA won't put money where their mouth is, and many want something for nothing. They spend hours on pilot forums moaning about £10 landing fees... so nobody has even tried it. Even assembling a syndicate around a single decent plane is hard, because most people look at what they can get out of it, with minimal commitment.
The DfT was talking about changing the planning regs to facilitate small airfield developments but it seems to have come to nothing.
"A few years ago I went to a Department for Transport seminar on GA and the Minister herself said that according to their research no GA airport fire crew has ever saved anybody's life, since WW2."
And whats thoroughly depressing about this statistic was that it was well known in the 1970's yet it took until 2010 unit the requirement for flight training from unlicensed (read no firecrew) to be allowed.
Nice to know that the powers that be have there finger on the pulse.
somehow it is perverse and funny the same way that the very same airport managers who think that getting one weekly Ryanair Scheduled service will bring them millions and believe in that strongly enough to sacrifice those who have kept the airport alive for the decades before they became managers don't quite see that it is today those places or outfits who are discounters and cheapos who make the big bucks.
Therefore, raising landing fees has mostly one of several purposes, none of them valid.
If a management feels they will earn more by rising landing fees for GA, most of them find that their intake of money from GA as a whole will fall dramatically as long as there are alternatives. Where there are none, they may rise as they wish and extort money from those who are able to pay. Still they loose money because in the end, the number of users will simply fall dramatically up to the point where the airport will depend on some very few biz jet or otherwise very wealthy users who then dictate their terms.
Obviously most European airports get carried away once a 737 or BAE146 has ever touched the ground and feel they now have it "made". Wrong. It is where their problems begin.
The parallels to taxation are striking. Why is it that countries who tax less have the best working economies, have the wealthiest people and more tax income per capita then the supertaxers who charge up to 70% of peoples and companies income? Those countries idealize poverty and punish success. Europe is mostly going that way right now, look at France, Italy, Germany and others. And then they will point fingers and threaten violence against countries which have tax systems of a maximum of maybe 20% or even less but thrive and prosper? Because there, businesses and people will flock to and WANT to live there?
The ideal GA airport in my view should be a service provider who makes their money by attracting people. That means, attractive infrastructure, IFR, Night e.t.c but cater for all GA from ULM's up to small biz jets. Minimal landing fees if any but infrastructure which attracts businesses inside and outside the aviation field, restaurants and entertainment facilities which are in direct connection to the aviation side of things and provide funds for them, be a save haven for GA. GA will flock there, they will happily pay hangar and parking fees if they get a reasonably priced airport where they have flight schools, maintenance, avionic shops, pilot shops and possibly the chance to buy property around it too.
It would have been possible in many places, like former military bases, like other airfields to develop like that, but it has been and will be an uphill struggle to do it. First of all, the GA image which seems to be rooted in councilor's minds of the rich, filthy and ruthless bastard playboy pilots is near to impossible to kill by the looks of it. Obviously, due to the high cost of flying, flying has more and more moved away from the mainstream towards those more wealthy, a very fatal development in my view but in that way a self fulfilling prejudice. That is one bit which needs to be countered.
Sometimes I do wonder if there is the point in trying to keeping going in Europe, which to me appears like it is on the verge to fall into a socialist trap it will probably only recover from after a most horrible conflict during breaking up the evil empire that the EU has become. But I can see that the same traps lure in other places, not least of all in what is considered to be the GA eldorado in the US. So it is sometimes really difficult to not loose faith and carry on flying.
Mankind has proven over and over again to be a fairly hapless lot when it comes to see what is best. A lot will go for the elusive turkey on the unreachable roof when they could have made fortunes with chickens dancing in front of them. Airport managers and developers today are the prime candidates for such behaviour. GA will continue to shrink if this tendency can't be stopped until it becomes so insignificant that the green/socialist gang which runs our continent mainly can sweep it aside with one fierce brush and claim victory over the rich swine which is who they consider every one of us to be.
Sometimes I wonder.... during the cold war we had excellent people from the East escape to the West to seek prosperity and escape communism. By the looks of it today, it may well be possible that we might see a reverse movement in coming years. It took the demise of the Soviets for world socialism to become a clear and present danger to the Western culture and way of life..... what a travesty.
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Sometimes I wonder.... during the cold war we had excellent people from the East escape to the West to seek prosperity and escape communism. By the looks of it today, it may well be possible that we might see a reverse movement in coming years.
No maybe about it - it's well under way. BBC Radio 4: Europe Moves East - Allan Little looks at the changing dynamic of the European Union. Programme available now on BBCiPlayer:
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As Mooney Driver has said, our problem is largely one of public perception and misconception.
In the general view it would seem that if you fly normal GA you are deemed to be rich and therefore the object of a loathsome envy. With the inception of light simple permit to fly aircraft as so ably sponsored by the LAA this mistaken idea continued despite the good work by that organization to correct it. Then Microlights/ ULM made aviation affordable to almost anyone that was prepared to put in the effort. Was this received as a step forward? 'fraid not, these pilots are considered to be beyond the pale for a different reason, they are after all suicidal nuts from who the public must be protected.
Another thing is that the public attitude to flying seems to have changed; partly I believe this to be due to the attitude of the media, but only partly. The way the media view flying is obvious, with slavering coverage of even a forced landing whilst a blind eye is practiced on similar incidents to surface traffic.
There seems also to be a lack of ambition amongst much of the population, to fly. Why is this, is it just a lack of aspiration? Flying has never been as accessible as it is now but the number of pilots is slowly but surely melting away and as the demand eases off so the facilities will slowly but surely decrease in number and increase in price.
I wonder if it actually has to do with the rapid growth of air transport as it is used by a large percentage of the population. The mistaken belief that flight is as exciting as sitting in mild discomfort in the airborne equivalent, from the passenger’s point of view, of a tube train.
How do we get over the delight of feeling the machine responding to the vagaries of the air that support it to such people? The satisfaction of a planned route as the waypoints tick up on the nose and on time, the alive feel that you get when the tail comes up and the mainwheels lighten until they are just tripping the ground before the earth sinks away and the machine becomes alive, the sweetness of a really good landing how do you get that across? I don’t know, but until we can we will remain to much of the populace a noise nuisance caused by the rich, the posh or the mad.
I often wonder to what extent we should try to evangelise our own hobbies. I have no interest in archery, but perhaps archers find that the ping of an arrow as it leaves towards the bullseye is just as satisfying as a perfect landing. Of course, it's in our interests to have as many pilots as possible to support the infrastructure that we all depend on.
When I do fly in airliners, there are often quite a lot of people who rush for the window seats and who seem to enjoy the experience. Perhaps they don't take their charts with them and try to spot the landmarks from Gatwick to Inverness as I once did, but still...
I am not sure there is a public misconception. In my experience of 7 years of flying within the GA scene, no one I have come across has said it's elitist or anything. Most people seem to have a respect for the hobby, but no more than for someone who spent a lot of time, money and hard work becoming a master at the piano, or a photographer, or a scuba diver etc.
Some people ask about the cost of aircraft, and are surprised that you can get a reasonable Cessna for £15k, and that not all aircraft cost hundreds of thousands of pounts. That takes some of the gloss off of it. Of course, there are some that are a few hundred k, and if you go to a place where there are Lear Jets, and Simon Cowell has just embarked and jumped into a Maybach car, then theres a stereotype just waiting to be had, but thats not our world.
The press might like to write about planes and stuff, because it's a break from having a dig at politicians or each other, and a road crashes still make the national (UK) news, so I see why plane crashes are equally written about.
Besides local councils and land owners being tempted by the ££, the only other group trying to close airfields down are those who get annoyed by low flying aircraft. If you move into a house within a few NM of a house, you're going to hear them. Of course if we are seen flouting the rules and buzzing people's houses at 300 ft, or doing loops over their back garden, we make it hard to defend ourselves, but thats not what most people do.
I must admit to being one of those who do try to ensure a window seat when flying in airliners, I also plead guilty to having taken a chart with me. I don't though notice much of the same fascination amongst my fellow passengers, having on occasion glanced around as we pass over some particularly stunning scene to see others reading, dozing and meditating on a seat back.
I make my comments on misconceptions from the people that I meet accompanying those taking trial lessons at our little microlight training club. We are based on a reasonable sized airfield and these folks are often amazed at the friendly attitude of all the fliers on the field whether they arrived to top of range vehicle or a battered old banger. It is not at all what they expected, nor is the cost of flying.
It is also on these people that I base my assertion that to many, flying is now just another form of transport and until demonstrated otherwise cannot understand the many things that private flying has to offer.
Local councils and landowners, I’m afraid, will always be tempted and the underhand way in which politicians a, good few years back now, tried to transform all airfields into “brownfield sites” was far from helpful. Our only weapon against this, as far as I can see is to work at getting the locals on our side. In this I have seen some positive reactions, on the field at which we train the locals are strongly pro airfield and were instrumental in defeating, for the time being, a developers proposal. At a farm strip from which I also operate the locals are proud of their airfield and we welcome them to come and sit in the sun and show around those that are interested.
Less positively though we tried some years ago to reopen another strip and our cause was not helped by pilots from an airfield the other side of the county using our strip for PFLs. The climbouts from their go arounds had them climbing at full power over the roofs of some of our neighbours. It was also claimed by objectors that we, just by having a strip there, attracted those who were flying aeros in the vicinity to our overhead. This didn’t help the cause and the strip closed, this time I fear for good.
So yes, if we have the chance to help the perception of the non flying public we should take it and not just keep ourselves to ourselves. After all local politicians on whom planning depend, depend themselves on the local populace and just need reminding of the fact now and then.
