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Landing Fees

C210_Flyer wrote:

I agree a very rational argument. Showing numbers is the only way. (Exaggeration coming)Then somehow imply that one or more of them can siphon money off into there pockets will usually tip the scales.

I have no idea what this means. Care to explain?

EGTK Oxford

There are three sentences which one is confusing?

KHTO, LHTL

C210_Flyer wrote:

There are three sentences which one is confusing

The last one.

EGTK Oxford

I wish it was that easy C210_Flyer.

In the case of Samedan, it was tried several times to tell them that they would loose most of small GA and the money coming from it and they simply responded that they did not care. Apparently their prices for biz jets are quite high as well and one reply I heard that was received was that all of GA up there could be compensated by two biz jets landing in a whole year. Now I personally think that is an outright lie unless they refer to maybe the largest jets they have but it also implies that they do not regard themselfs as infrastructure for public use but as a private airfield for a certain clientele. As it is illegal to outright ban small GA, the way they chose was outpricing, initially even higher but at least their landing fees per se were curtailed by the FOCA.

As a matter of fact, it has to be said that the Swiss FOCA has played a very vital role in keeping places like Zurich, Geneva and Samedan open to small GA at all by blocking attempts of further outpricing as much as they could. Unfortunately other factors such as obligatory handling have neutralized this effort, but all in all, if these airports had their way, they would have imposed simple bans of anything below a certain amount of money per landing.

Geneva’s airport director apparently attended a meeting discussing the future of GA there as the grass runway was discovered not to be sufficiently separated from the main runway according to latest laws and after decades of unproblematic use. Apparently he sat through the whole presentation arguments without uttering one word, then stood and left stating “Small GA has no place here and that is final”. Again, FOCA prevented them from banning light GA totally but it is difficult and expensive there. Pity as Geneva features both Swiss and French customs.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Unfortunately other factors such as obligatory handling have neutralized this effort, but all in all, if these airports had their way, they would have imposed simple bans of anything below a certain amount of money per landing.

Doesn’t the EU rule about the right to self-handle apply in Switzerland?

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

JasonC wrote:

The last one.

Yeah, Its called corruption. What you havent heard of it here in Europe? Is it an unknown entity?

Are your politicians and bureaucrats free of such vises? If so then you are indeed blessed.

In the US the airport where Im from, 3 Developers have spent the last 25 yrs trying to close the airport using every dirty trick in the book to the point of paying people to get on the ballot and getting them elected to do their bidding once there. They have easily spent over several million $ to get in return on investment of $4-500 million. That is just for land value. They started out with noise complaints and it has morphed into closing the airport entirely.

KHTO, LHTL

I still can’t get along with the outragous fees at Buochs Airport (LSZC), Switzerland. For non-based pilots, Buochs is one of the most expensive airports in Europe for light GA outside Tower operational hours. The Tower is only manned during the week (MO-FR) from 07:30 to 12:05 and from 13:15 to 17:05 LT. This means landing at midday, in the evening or at weekends, a huge handling fee will be charged. To sum it up a bit for a weekend trip, here is a cost estimation:

Given parameters: Diamond DA20 (Katana), 1 overnight stay, 1 crew, 1 pax, coming from Germany:

International landing fee outside TWR operational hours: 44,75 CHF
Handling fee outside TWR opr hrs upon arrival: 180 CHF
Customs declaration admin fee: 55 CHF
Parking fee 1 night (outdoor): 15,75 CHF
International passenger fee (departure): 15 CHF
Handling fee outside TWR opr hrs upon departure: 180 CHF
TOTAL: 490,50 CHF + 7,7% tax = 528,27 CHF (+/- 488 EUR)

For that money, you still have to make your own blind calls. Do you need ATC as well? No problem, that will cost another 440 CHF on top!

I’ve no words for it. Buochs is just a simple regional airport, without any further infrastructure, except the aircraft manufacturers Pilatus and Lightwing. Zurich and Geneva are both much less expensive for lots of bigger and busier airports. Luckily, we have Kägiswil as well, which costs only 20 CHF for landing, 20 CHF for customs admin fee and another 20 CHF for parking. It is still not cheap, but for Switzerland OK.

Home-based pilots pay only the basic landing fees outside the TWR operating hours at Buochs. Could a crossing road be the reason for those prohibitively expensive fees?! Home-based pilots may operate the (very easy to use) barriers by transmitting 4 short radio signals on the Tower frequency. After getting a voice message as confirmation, the barriers remain closed for 4 minutes. It’s all described in the VFR Manual. However, non-based pilots may not operate it by themselves, so someone else has to close the barriers from the ground. I’m just wondering why, since Ambri has the same system, where everybody may operate it by themselves. And the road, crossing the runway at Buochs, is just a small local road, without any importance.

But I still can’t believe this is the only reason for those outragous fees. Once, I had a familiarization flight with Lightwing at Buochs, but even after this, I wasn’t allowed to land at Buochs without paying the extraordinary handling fees (except when I would use a home-based aircraft), so I guess, the pricing is also a way to prevent strangers from coming to Buochs, so it is an “exclusive” airport for home-based aircraft (e.g. Pilatus) only.

It’s sad, very sad. Buochs has a nice long runway, with stunning scenery and it could be a very easy way to visit Lucerne and it’s big famous mountain lake (Vierwaldstättersee), thanks to a direct bus connection to Stans or Seelisberg.

Last Edited by Frans at 03 Sep 13:31
Switzerland

Stark contrast with Malta LMML where the landing fee is a few Euros. Albeit there is mandatory handling for international flights which costs Euro 100+, but for local flights the costs are held low and if you are departing international then your fuel is tax free. Malta ATC do a superb job of coordinating GA traffic with the constant stream of CAT arriving and departing. My impression is that Malta sees GA as strategically important, as it is the training pipeline for tomorrow’s commercial pilots. Good for them.

NeilC
EGPT, LMML

Frans wrote:

Buochs is one of the most expensive airports in Europe

I can think of more expensive airports in Europe.

It’s Moscow.

Last Edited by loco at 03 Sep 19:35
LPFR, Poland

If you want a competition, you can have it

Gatwick EGKK would charge more than €2258 for the TBM, I am sure. They charge 3.5k GBP for a CJ4.

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Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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