channel-hopper wrote:
I think it’s to manage traffic… if you’ve ever landed there, it’s a bit like an altiport where you have to depart the same way you flew in. So someone landing blocks the whole airport (IFR) for anyone else departing, I think, I could be wrong. On Saturdays they have a lot of flights and (at least used to) have transport jets etc carrying many thousands of passengers so presumably would want to prioritise these over SEP traffic.
You are probably talking from UK ATCO point of view? if you add doing “coordination for an airway join” and “provide IFR/VFR separation in Delta” it would sound even better 
AFAIK, all French altiports don’t have ATC or ILS: no controlled airspace & no instrument approaches, most have nothing, the only exception is Courcheval which has an AFIS, he is called Mr Yves, he has a special mandate: he is “qualified” to decide on weather conditions for runway & vicinity and can close the shop as IFR is not allowed in Courcheval and VFR operations are subject to Mr Yves approval !
So not sure what you mean by manage traffic?
Chambery has Class D CTR and ATC and ILS/GPS, they also have special mandate to dictate different criteria for weather minima for their airspace and require extra pilot training for visits when weather is less than ideal, still there is nothing to manage, crossing their airspace and vicinity is always guaranteed
The real problem is parking space for visitors in busy winter but here is not issues for “SEP prioritization” and “IFR separation” (in Class D) if you fly the Aeroclub Robins…
I landed rwy 18 at LFLB, and took off from rwy18 three days later on the PAS8R which is not blocking the later part of the ILS to rwy18. So both runways are in use for landing and takeoff, however, there are only approaches (ILS & GNS) from the north to the south, which can indeed be blocking.
I second lack of parking space on the main aprons and on parking L. However, the far-away parking P was empty except my airplane and that of the maintenance organisation.
I doubt it’s related to departures & arrivals following the same route? there is no way to sequence IFR traffic in controlled towers without Radar+ILS where minimum vectoring matches platform altitude…so all the time you will be stuck with one single IFR traffic blocking all the way from IAF to Hold? or from RWY to SID?
Having departures & arrivals the same way is less relevant, if it’s procedural it will be “one at the time” anyway…
PS: Chambery Approach do have a radar but they are very quiet about it: no radar vectoring chart (as it’s called “LYON APP”, see Lyon AD for surveillance chart), I think you are supposed to “RNAV your own way”? if unable they may offer vectors above 10kft
Ibra wrote:
there is no way to sequence IFR traffic in controlled towers without Radar+ILS where minimum vectoring matches platform altitude…so all the time you will be stuck with one single IFR traffic blocking all the way from IAF to Hold? or from RWY to SID?
Why not if the missed approach is procedurally separated from the initial/intermediate/final approach?
I did not have that possibiliy in mind but yes possible
On Saturdays they have a lot of flights and (at least used to) have transport jets etc carrying many thousands of passengers so presumably would want to prioritise these over SEP traffic.
This is very poor excuse. Moreover, if you read loco’s post above, he wasn’t flying SEP and he didn’t need parking. So as I wrote, it’s a ripoff.
Ibra wrote:
You are probably talking from UK ATCO point of view? if you add doing “coordination for an airway join” and “provide IFR/VFR separation in Delta” it would sound even better
Ha… yes I think my analogy got rather lost in translation. Of course all the French altiports are strictly VFR… it would be obviously bonkers for somewhere like Courchevel or Megeve to have an instrument approach :-) The comparison was simply that these airports are similar to Chambery in that there is one way in and one way out, due to the massive whacking-great mountains at the end of the respective runways.
When planning for Saturday movements I’m guessing that the tower at Chambery have to assume that if conditions are IFR, then given it’s basically a procedural approach, any aircraft landing or taking off will be ‘blocking’ the final approach path, and so numbers are limited. Thus the high fee which is only in place on Saturday’s… the busiest day I would presume.
(And just to be clear, I wouldn’t dream of landing IFR in Chambery in my plane… but there are lots of commercial operators and airlines who can and do).
I seem to remember Annecy also had a weekend surcharge… for much the same reasons.
Emir wrote:
This is very poor excuse. Moreover, if you read loco’s post above, he wasn’t flying SEP and he didn’t need parking. So as I wrote, it’s a ripoff.
Firstly I have no insider knowledge or allegiance to Chambery airport… I’m just musing here.
Confused about your comment though. Loco appears to have been charged a large surcharge for landing on a Saturday. I don’t think this is a parking charge… it’s a charge for a Saturday movement. I’m assuming it’s designed to discourage people from landing on the busy Saturdays, thus encouraging them to plan their trips so that they land on other days.
If it was an attempt to ‘rip off’ people then I would have thought it would apply on every day, and all year round, and not just during the busiest day of the winter.
I would guess that Chambery see it as a way ofbgetting rich people (or the people they perceive to have lots of money) to provide enough income to keep the airport running and the fees reasonable on every other day of the year.
There is a working winter slot system at Chambery, so the argument about discouraging people from landing on busy Saturdays doesn’t sound convincing to me. It’s more about taking advantage of the bizjet clients. They won’t notice an extra thousand euros when an hour of flight costs them 10k. They also just paid several times higher landing fee at Vnukovo, so it is relatively cheap at Chambery.
