Santorini has now joined Mykonos in not allowing parking for more than half an hour or so.
Santorini I’ve been there last October I manage to get parking for two nights (with a 16t airplane)
A Swiss crew with a DA42 landed at the same time and stayed also 1 or 2 nights.
I parked at LGSR too, for about 5 nights, in 2005.
They have a huge amount of parking.
In many ways, we have seen and enjoyed some good times which are gone now, and probably forever, because Fraport will never give up milking the Greek tourist business. But a bigger problem is some of their behaviour.
amingin wrote:
I feel these executives simply don’t understand what GA is.
They do but hate it and don’t want it. So they price it out.
Snoopy wrote:
So FRAPORT are above the law and can just do what they want
They de facto own the airports and so yes, they can. National authorities can intervene when it comes to landing fees, but not handling. Handling and the outpricing due to it now is the biggest problem GA has in large parts of Europe.
Sebastian_G wrote:
Unfortunately the steep price increases above 2t are quite common.
De facto: 2 tons is the sound barrier for GA in Europe. Anything above it is considered biz jet niveau and taxed accordingly. Eurocontrol set a precedent with this, waiving enroute taxes for above 2tons, resulting in the infamous 1999kg limit. So more and more, it becomes clear that 2 tons is what is considered small GA and gets at least partly exempt from some of the more ridikulous overcharges, above that, anyone is considered in the league of G5 or above clientele.
Peter’s example of Corfu, once a wonderful GA destination and today practically closed to GA due to outpricing, is a very hurtful example for the clear statement by the operators: WE DO NOT WANT YOU, F**K OFF OR CAUGH UP.
It won’t change, it will get worse, unless EASA gets authority over handling charges or get to impose a ban or cap on handling charges below 2tons. Otherwise, European airports will go more and more towards the Asian larger airports, who basically don’t allow GA at all or if so then at outrageous charges.
What is missing in most of these places are alternative small airfields where GA can operate outside the framework of handling companies, like in Germany and many other places. To an extent, this is happening in Bulgaria for instance, where a bunch of smaller airfields have opened in the last years. It would be interesting to see if there are such abandoned airfields in Greece which can be claimed for GA ops, but I am not really optimistic… yet, if it’s there, it might as well be used.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
They de facto own the airports and so yes,
To be exact, the airports remain state property forever; its the Concession Agreement signed that assigns them the running of the airports with an obligation to deliver 60% of clean profits to the state and 40% to Fraport.
There is even a audit committee that oversees the implementation of the agreement and do take action in cases of non conformance regarding maximum possible profit on Airside and Landside commercial operations at these 14 airports.
The biggest problem of this deal is that the Concession Agreement does not have clear provisions (obligations) towards GA.
There is a generic mention in the style of : “and parking space for GA should be provided including their refueling provision” and thats where it ends.
If I were the legislator I would put in binding numbers per airport.
Unfortunately this agreement it is what it is and evidently it provides ground for any interpretation on the GA provisions.
To be honest this is the true guilty part, not Fraport.
Fraport just abide to their contractual obligation to make (shared) profit for the state.
petakas wrote:
To be exact, the airports remain state property forever; its the Concession Agreement signed that assigns them the running of the airports with an obligation to deliver 60% of clean profits to the state and 40% to Fraport.
That is why I wrote “de facto”. Of course they are “only” the people running it, but that basically gives them full authority to price out whomever they do not want.
petakas wrote:
To be honest this is the true guilty part, not Fraport.
Fraport just abide to their contractual obligation to make (shared) profit for the state.
It opens the possibility for Fraport to keep GA out. Nobody sais they have to do this, nobody sais they even have to insist on handling. In fact, Fraport, if they were indifferent to GA, could just put one stretch of Tarmac which can’t be or won’t be used for anything else aside and say, ok, as per agreement,this is the place we provide for fuelling and parking. But they don’t do that, instead they outprice it.
No, I don’t agree that this is their duty and actually it is in contradiction to their contractual obligation one could argue. Because by pricing out and PPR denials, they actually volontarily forego movements and therefore income for the state. 60% of zero is still zero.
IHMO, it is criminal to put such agreements in place regarding infrastructure which shold be available to all public. In comparison what would happen if e.g an operator of a motorway could decide that he doesn’t want personal cars, only heavy transports, because the small cars don’t make enough money? So he puts a 300 Euro surcharge? I think the law would be after them before they can get the print to dry. That is the comparison here: Expolitation of a monopoly, denial via outpricing of essential services (such as access to islands) and withholding a public infrastructure from use by the public.
Well, yes, but Greece borrowed too much and had its back to the wall on this (like on everything else).
One should be grateful they didn’t impose a flat rate of €1000 per landing and then spend the huge amount of money generated on buying another 3 submarines for the price of ten 
I am surprised Fraport are skimming “only” 40%. I thought they were skimming 100% In return for “investment” in the airports, of course, like building bigger terminals (badly needed in some places e.g. Santorini) and replenishing the toilet paper at least once a month.
Still, a beautiful country full of super friendly people, and wonderful food
Mooney_Driver wrote:
IHMO, it is criminal to put such agreements in place regarding infrastructure which shold be available to all public
The conditions put on the Greek government by the IMF and the EU led to this kind of agreements. You could argue that those conditions were criminal.
Very much so, but how far back up the “causal chain” does one go?
Greece was lent way more than it could ever repay, because the lenders “knew that Germany would take care of it”. When Greece could not repay it, it got hanged. But it got hanged only because it is a small country. They could not have done that with Spain or Italy. They also knew that Greek public opinion would not have backed the logical solution (a default, and a return to the Drachma).
Peter wrote:
They also knew that Greek public opinion would not have backed the logical solution (a default, and a return to the Drachma).
If you want to go up the causal chain, I think you’ll find the original problem was to include Greece in the Eurozone, based on accounts everyone knew were fake.
