I’m a member of a club whose prices have been rising a lot in the last two years. For many members (myself included) I’ve talked to they think our prices are extremely expensive.
In 2016 our prices were (tach time)
Now in 2019 they have risen to
In addition to this we pay 7 euro per landing at our home base. There used to be a landing fee which has been since removed, but our club continued debiting the fee “to account for maintenance”. At our annual meeting it was explained that the increases are due to “increases in fuel and maintenance costs”. I think this is nonsense, or we are extremely overpaying for our maintenance; we do operate a couple of our aircraft for the Voluntary Flying Corps (FFK) and it was explained that this causes us to need a more intensive CAMO. Some have questioned why we don’t charge FFK for the increased costs but a clear answer wasn’t given (something about the prices they pay being predetermined or fixed I believe).
For more background our membership fee is above 300 euro / yr and we “loan” the club a bit under 1000 euro upon joining.
I’ve read what other clubs are setting their hourly prices at and can not find any charging anywhere near what we do. In fact I’ve found that some clubs have much better equipped aircraft for less money. I’ve personally been renting from several private owners a lot this year because I can fly some nice complex machines for less money or a bit more for a DA42 than our club charges.
What do you who are also members of flying clubs pay in dues and fees for your aircraft?
Those prices are expensive even be Greek standards.
Our club in Sweden takes 126 Euros for C172M and 108 Euros for C152. And it can get 10 Euros cheaper per hour if you participate in the 1000 Euro loan system.
Your current price are in standard for South France. I’d be leased to rent a da42 for just a bit more, here it’ more than double that (wet).
Dimme,the pricelist you post is from 2014,when neither Wing Spar AD,neither 8,33 or Mode S was implemented yet.Happy cheap times inside LGTS and (maybe) fuel subsidised from various origins. The prices reported by Cttime are more in accordance of what it cost me then.I realy know because I payed everything out of my pocket.German aeroclubs have similar prices too.You can charge cheaper if they let you cut corners of course.
Speaking as an owner, the prices you quote look like a realistic attempt to cover the actual all-in costs of operating these planes (I assume the prices are wet), especially if they are equipped with proper avionics (probably not the latest). The Archer looks like a bargain, depending on the panel and its cosmetics.
Cessna is equipped with no DME and a kln 94.
Archer has DME and two 430s (non waas). Cadets are vfr only.
A couple of observations:
Your annual fee is very low. This means, that the airplanes need to generate almost all the club revenue. In doing this, you forgo the advantages any club (flying, golfing, yachting, you name it) has, i.e. by applying the rule of thirds. Which is:
- one third of the members never use the assets, but pay their subs because they want ‘to belong’
- one third of members use the assets sparingly
- one third of members use the assets on a regular basis..
It’s this last third that effectively gets subsidized by the others. Running a club this way allows you to keep the asset costs – airplane rentals in this case – lower than they otherwise would be.
Our club here is run that way. We charge $124/month, so $ 1488 p.a. On top of that we have a club service system (fixed hours plus some fraction per hour flown). If you don’t fulfill these hours, then you’re assessed $50/hour of club service not rendered. So – we have a healthy base income which allows us to charge low hourly rates. These currently are:
- 172M: $86
- 172S: $96
- 182P: $134
- 210L: $196
All wet, IFR equipped with ADS-B.
Of course a lot of things – fuel above all – are cheaper here in the US, but if you want to bring your hourly rates down, then you should think about running the club in the way I describe above. In any case, as a club member you must have access to the accounts, so you can check for yourself where the money goes.
One final thought: I have no idea what the Voluntary Flying Corps (FFK) is, but if that forces you into a CAMO, then ditch it.
Cttime wrote:
I’m a member of a club whose prices have been rising a lot in the last two years. For many members (myself included) I’ve talked to they think our prices are extremely expensive.
Regards, SD..
Cttime wrote:
At our annual meeting it was explained that the increases are due to “increases in fuel and maintenance costs”. I think this is nonsense,
I don’t think this is nonsense at all. I’m the chairman of a reasonably large club in Sweden with three owned aircraft. Our maintenance costs have almost doubled in 5 years. Fuel prices have increased more than 20% in 4 years. We have managed to not increase prices so much as we have had an inflow of new members and an increased flight time production the last few years so that fixed costs is divided among more people/flight hours, but the situation is very worrying. We have heard similar things from other clubs in the neighborhood.
The main reason for the maintenance cost increase is that small maintenance companies have closed when the owners retired and we have to more and more rely on large maintenance facilities that charge very much more. Part 66 people for light aircraft maintenance are in short supply as it pays more to work on transport category aircraft. We would want to do without CAMO, but the problem is that the CAMO work still has to be done by someone and that is not work that you can do when you feel like it — it has to be done continuously. We are also seriously thinking about pilot/owner maintenance.
