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Sickening GA developments in Stockholm, Sweden.

Yes - let's please keep this to stuff which has some chance of happening. Parliamentary democracy is not perfect but we can't change it. Clearly the best solution would be to dig out Joseph Stalin, modify his DNA so he loves flying in little planes, and put him in charge of Europe, but the technology to do that isn't around yet, either.

I too think that the biggest single issue is that airports become centres for empire building, and they either attract Ryanair (etc) or they close under the massive fixed costs of millions spent annually on staff and infrastructure.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I think part of the problem once an airport attracts Ryanair is that Ryanair and their friends drive a very hard bargain (give us low/no landing fees or we go elsewhere and your airport will go bust). My suspicion is that once an airport has made deep discounts to Ryanair it will just make it back up in some other way. For example, see Bristol Airport with its extremely high GA landing and handling fees. They even hit car drivers - if you go to Bristol Airport to pick someone up, you get charged £1 just to drive past the front of the terminal and not even park. Airports without Ryanair tend to let you do that for free. I suspect the airport had to start doing that to recoup the deep discount they gave to Ryanair (so the £1 that Ryanair gets to knock off the fare just gets paid by the passenger some other way - or the passenger's family when they go to pick them up from the airport).

You get to see other bizarre money making schemes in Ryanair-served airports - for instance see the £4 "pay to jump the queue in security" thing at Liverpool.

Andreas IOM

I wonder what the actual deal with Ryanair is.

At taxpayer-funded airports, it is "obvious" that the local government subsidises the airport, to get the tourists to spend money locally, and MOL knows this.

But is Bristol getting any taxpayer money? If no, they have exactly zero incentive to have anybody flying in for free. Maybe Ryanair just get a deep discount... but even that needs to be set at a level which at least covers the airport's costs. The airport has zero interest in helping the local economy.

You get to see other bizarre money making schemes in Ryanair-served airports - for instance see the £4 "pay to jump the queue in security" thing at Liverpool.

Everybody is at it. Easyjet (my favourite short haul) is running scams like £10 easy boarding, even when you have pre-booked the seats online.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

But is Bristol getting any taxpayer money? If no, they have exactly zero incentive to have anybody flying in for free. Maybe Ryanair just get a deep discount... but even that needs to be set at a level which at least covers the airport's costs. The airport has zero interest in helping the local economy.

They do have an incentive to keep their own local economy going though (the departure lounge retail economy). No high flow of passengers, fewer shops interested, therefore an inability to charge profitable rent rates for people to run the various retail establishments inside the airport. The airport can give a very keen price to Ryanair (with little or no direct profit from the actual airline operation) if they can make it up by keeping their own local economy (the airport lounge retail economy) vital and producing worthwhile rents and other fees. And also pass on some of the costs of the discount they gave to Ryanair to the passengers themselves (i.e. the fee for being picked up or dropped off in a private car, which in an airport very poorly served by public transport is likely to be the main way people get to and from the airport).

I'm only hypothesising here - I've not looked at Bristol Airport's accounts - but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the above were true or mostly true.

Andreas IOM

Ryanair was recently sentenced in France to a large fine by a court because they hired local people in Marseilles airport under Irish contracts and/or regulations. They did not pay for exemple the French social security. I can't remember the fine exactly but it was several millions euros. It is true that many regional airports now try to attract low cost companies. Therefore they build terminals, hire firemen, crew a tower etc... And then because the low cost company does not want to pay for it, they charge the money on other users : GA, taxpayers etc... There was (still is) a debate here to know whether tax money should be used to help an irish company get huge discounts from airports operators. It looks like blackmail to some people. Chambery LFLB is an exemple of a quiet airfield turned in the last few years into a not GA friendly one because they invested a lot to be able to welcome charters in winter (for people going to ski in the nearby resorts). Now it is almost impossible to go to Chambery with your light aircraft in winter. Use of the airport is restricted by Notams and taxes are unsanely high.

SE France
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