Just a word of warning. My student was charged £35.94 per training approach in a DA42 at Gloucester the other day, which is about double anywhere else.
Apparently they charge any twin, no matter how light, the 5.6T rate.
So, Caveat Emptor!
I got charged 54 quid for 2 into Humberside approx 2 moths age. They actually billed me incorrectly and it should have been half that but I gave up arguing with them.
Is 36 quid excessive? What do you think is a realistic price? How does 36 quid compare with other airfields that you use?
I cant recall the price but I’d expect about half that in a SEP, and I don’t know a SEP approach at Gloucester is in comparison to a MEP. I recall doing some approaches at Lydd once, which were quite reasonable, except the 10D arc as part of their procedure meaning quite a bit more time in the air compared to other places.
I am sorry to say that twins get screwed in so many places… Down here you also pay 2x for hangarage – unsurprising since a DA42 takes up about 2x the floor area of a “normal” SEP.
That said, Cranfield used to charge £30 just for the ILS (plus another £30 for landing a 1400kg TB20). When some based FTO went bust, they woke up and dropped it to £5 
A big surprise to me was when I did the JAA IRT to Southampton and when I called them to pay afterwards, they charged zero because they had no price list for non-landing traffic. I believe they have since corrected that discrepancy 
Airports are in a difficult situation on this because instrument training traffic does heavily use other (non-base) airports. This is likely to get worse because the CB IR can be largely – if not wholly – trained from anywhere, whereas in the old days all IR training had to be from an FTO and they were mostly based at the bigger airports. The only thing which could be trained from anywhere was the IMC Rating but the takeup on that has collapsed over the past decade (it has recently revived again).
But with so many airports being PPR for non-based instrument training traffic, one just has to telephone ahead and one can check prices then.
Lydd charges me £20 for an ILS, non-landing. I fly that quite often.
Timothy, it’s a bit disappointing that you didn’t also point out the text conversation we had after you brought this to my attention yesterday.
It’s a fair cop! As I explained, we did lump all twins under 5.7mt into the same cost bracket when we introduced the fees last year. It does, however, work out cheaper if the twin lands each time and cheaper still, if it uplifts fuel and sometimes free with our (free) landing fee loyalty card. Whilst I appreciate that that’s not always practical or relevant to the training need, it’s indicative of our basic business ethos that we try to be fair and realistic with our charges across the GA spectrum. You’ll also recall we dropped our MEP landing fee rate last year for the lower weights in response to the ‘twin vs single’ argument, of which you were one of the strongest proponents. I even joked we called it the ‘Timothy rate’.
As I mentioned, I will look at these rates again when we review in the New Year but demand at the moment currently exceeds supply and it will be very difficult to please everyone. It’s also worth mentioning that my costs have only gone one way since we completed the £4m ILS/runway project. Mandatory flight checking and ground engineering staffing costs are around £55k p.a. and I’ve got £2.4m of finance to pay back. I don’t have 2m Ryanair passengers to fleece for car parking and Duty Free so need to cover these costs (and make a profit – we are, after all, a business!) from my GA customers. I could, of course, give these valuable training slots away for a fiver (How long do you really think that’s going to last at Cranfield?) and join the likes of Plymouth, Manston and Blackpool.
Our current charges are: -
Navigation Service Fees
In addition to the standard landing fee, the following charges are levied per IFR arrival, whenever clearance for a published instrument approach is issued by ATC:
Homebased aircraft:
Single engined aircraft: £3 + VAT
Multi engined aircraft <5.7mt: £6.50 + VAT
Multi engined aircraft >5.7mt: £9.50 + VAT
Visiting Aircraft:
Single engined aircraft: £4.00 + VAT
Multi engined aircraft <5.7mt: £7.50 + VAT
Multi engined aircraft >5.7mt: £10.50 + VAT
3.2 Training Fees – Instrument Approach & STOL PAPI
The following fees are levied per intentional go-around, whether executing a missed or circling approach. Intentional visual go-arounds by aircraft that do not subsequently land will also incur the charges below: -
Single engine aircraft: £16.50 + VAT
Multi engine aircraft up to 5.7mt: £29.75 + VAT
Multi engine aircraft over 5.7mt: 33% of standard landing fee
In the case of homebased aircraft, approaches will be charged at 75% of the rate shown above.
All Instrument Training is subject to prior permission from ATC. Gloucestershire Airport reserves the right to charge the fees shown above if an aircraft fails to arrive for, or cancel a pre-booked instrument training slot with less than 60 minutes notice.
Sorry, Darren, I wouldn’t mention a private text exchange in a public forum, but anyway, as you say, the upshot of that exchange is that all light twins are charged £35.70 per approach and that you felt that was justified by supply and demand.
That’s absolutely fine and, as I said about twin landing fees, it is entirely up to you to set rates, and it is entirely up to training aircraft whether they want to pay your rates or go elsewhere.
This thread was meant only to be informative for people taking that decision. I was embarrassed yesterday to have suggested to a twin owner that we go to Gloucester and to have him comment how expensive it was. I had assumed that it would be the same price as I (very regularly) pay for singles and I was as shocked as him.
I am simply trying to help other instructors and examiners avoid that embarrassment and to have the information to make an informed choice.
My (now) informed choice will be to continue to come to Gloucester in singles, as it is an excellent facility with excellent controllers and management and a reasonable cafe, but to go elsewhere with twins.
Why does a twin pay more for an approach than a single? Parking I arguably get.
The trouble with that argument is that you could ask why an MEP pays no Eurocontrol, a 2T twin pays some and a 747 pays a lot, when the amount of resource they occupy is the inversion of that. The answer lies in the perception of their willingness to pay.
“If you can afford a twin you are less likely to baulk at higher charges than if you can only afford a single.”
I don’t think that the answer lies in complaining about fairness or reasonableness, it lies in people making choices. I now know not to go to Gloucester in a twin. But, as I say, I will continue to go in singles.
I don’t think it is? It’s a few quid more, not 4-5 times more.
If you make an approach and land in a DA42, the charges would be:-
£20 for the landing*
£9.50 for the navigation service charge
Total £29.50
Or for a training approach, £35.94
*This anomaly is ironic in the sense that it’s thanks to Timothy that the landing fee for twins was reduced. Prior to this reduction, the landing fee would indeed have been more than the practice instrument approach!
