I enjoy flying into all sizes of airports. There’s lots of pros and cons of every type. Dropping people off and picking people up for CAT, and connections to public transport or car hire are the best for larger airports.
When I flew in the USA I flew into airports both large and small, including the busy internationals. They were all accessible in some way.
When I flew in most of continental Europe I flew into airports both large and small, excluding the busy internationals due to silly fees.
When I flew in the UK I mainly flew into small airports and occasionally medium sized ones due to silly fees. It’s been annoying that I’ve had to take a taxi from a small (sometimes grass) airport in middle of nowhere at times to get to my destination, adding an additional £40 per single journey or £80 return.
I haven’t flown in Greece yet due to silly fees at disused airports.
It really depends on where you fly I would say. In Europe, for me it‘s the prohibitive costs that keep me away from the big and the wannabe-big airfields. I’ve just flown into a major class-B airport in the US (HNL), more than 300.000 movements per year and pretty complex too…and I did not pay a dime! Getting out took five minutes, getting in even less (because I now knew where the gate was). People had their own hangars like on a normal GA airfield, it was amazing!
Using a bigger airport does not have to be for free I think, but having to pay ridiculous amounts of money like we have to in Europe sure takes the fun from it and reasoning sets in.
To the original question, definitly so. But there are several reasons.
First and foremost, cost. Most of the large airports are significantly more expensive than smaller airfields around. To an extent that is justified by better infrastructure, in most cases it is just tactics by the larger airports to outprice the “insects” as they call small GA via high fees and obligatory handling.
Secondly: Hassle. Slots,Security,, e.t.c. goes together with cost of course but slots massively reduce the use of a GA plane as it takes away the freedom of schedule. If you have to make sure you have a slot and adhere to it 2 days before the flight, lots of people don’t want to be bothered.
And then there are many small clubs whose instructors instill fear of airports with CTR’s and radio into their students which results in poor radio skills unless these people take it into their own hands. There is still a bunch of folks out there without LP4 in English and those of course are excluded from all the big airport fun.
Other than that, I could not be happier flying from an big international airport. It keeps the skills up, they are available much longer than most private strips and usually have all sorts of customs. At ZRH we are also blessed with very friendly staff who do their very best to migate the slot and handling issues. It has got it’s price but so far I think it is the best variant offered to me. I only wish I could afford their hangar fees… but I could rent a 3 room flat in the area for the price…
