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Corona / Covid-19 virus - airport and flying restrictions, and licensing / medical issues

Home base now notam’d closed until 31/07. Not encouraging. Hopefully a case of waiting for flight instruction to begin again in August (as per government re-opening plan), as the main tenant is an FTO.

EIMH, Ireland

Looks Jersey Aeroclub is going down after the closure?

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

zuutroy27-May-20 10:53294
Home base now notam’d closed until 31/07. Not encouraging. Hopefully a case of waiting for flight instruction to begin again in August (as per government re-opening plan), as the main tenant is an FTO.

It amazes me how many people are happy to just casually destroy economic and leisure facilities, as if they enjoyed it.

Solo could be allowed.

It is like the Scilly Isles closing to GA for about 3 months last year. And now people working there are in tears on TV saying how they have no income. Presumably they never noticed their own govt is pointlessly flecking their economy just because some fat official likes to feel important.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Part of the problem is that Dublin Airport insisted it was made class C and couldn’t be open without the tower manned. I presume there also needs to be a fireman. Paying 2 full time salaries when your only income is a few €5/€10 TnG and landing fees from the few based SEPs just doesn’t make sense. We have followed the doctors advice to the letter here and are now at 50 cases a day and single figure deaths but they are proceeding with the 5 phases at 3 weeks per phase. Patience is wearing thin now both with the public and the politicians, though.

EIMH, Ireland

Part of the problem is that Dublin Airport insisted it was made class C and couldn’t be open without the tower manned.

I don’t think that’s the case. Dublin Airport doesn’t have a say in this. I believe it was the IAA that insisted on it.

But the airport operated happily with this requirement prior to the current owner.

The current owner is a property developer, and I don’t think they particularly care about Weston as an airport. In recent years, they regularly close early because nothing is due in or because the weather isn’t good. They schedule closed weekends during the summer when the airfield is used for concerts or other events. Prime time for flying.

If you think about it, I don’t think the current lockdown would affect their income too badly. Most of their income will come from parking/hangarage which is fixed and still due (probably paid since Jan) and rent for the flight school offices inside the terminal. All that still comes in or is in already. Landing charges will be minimal. They will have lost out on fuel sales, but on the other side a large part of their staff wages will be paid under the government subsidy which should easily offset that.

I think the big problems is that under the government plans, travel beyond 20km is prohibited until 20 July making flying beyond the circuit unrealistic, the owner not being particularly interested in Weston being an airport. I’m not sure that they are opposed to it….just they they don’t care either way….either it makes it profit as an airport or as a building site.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

travel beyond 20km is prohibited

Again, this is obviously not what the govt intended. The intention behind any restriction on movement is to minimise the extent to which people go somewhere and fart around when they get there, infecting others. Most people are truly dumb and have no idea at all of basic hygiene. Touch every door handle and then pick their nose

Everybody knows that when you are in the car you won’t infect anybody, and same in a plane. So for flying they could have made it A-to-A, and you could do nice flights around Ireland. That’s quite nice on a nice day (it does happen in Ireland)

It’s only because most people are as thick as a plank that we have these stupid rules. And then airfields interpret them as tightly as they can. And you can bet that without the govt wages subsidy they would be closing a lot less These subsidies are needed by so many who have been truly hit by this thing, but are easy money for probably just as many and a lot of what goes on is what in any other age would be called benefits fraud.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

dublinpilot wrote:

I don’t think that’s the case. Dublin Airport doesn’t have a say in this. I believe it was the IAA that insisted on it.

Yes I phrased that very badly!

dublinpilot wrote:

Most of their income will come from parking/hangarage which is fixed and still due (probably paid since Jan)

Are there any aircraft left there? Everyone I knew of paid monthly.

I wonder what the endgame of their owners is. Are they hoping it will be re-zoned and turned into houses? That seems very unlikely.

EIMH, Ireland

Are there any aircraft left there? Everyone I knew of paid monthly.

I don’t know how many are there at present. I haven’t been that direction in awhile. Maybe I’ll go for a walk that way over the weekend now that we can go for 5km
But I don’t think that there would have been much point in moving. Everywhere was starting to close and the country was preparing for lockdown at the time, so there would have been little point in moving. There still isn’t really given the travel restrictions until 20 July.

Any invoices I saw/paid were annual, but everyone seems to have negotiated their own arrangements

I wonder what the endgame of their owners is. Are they hoping it will be re-zoned and turned into houses? That seems very unlikely.

I don’t honestly know. I new someone close to the owner when he bought it. Their quote from his was that if it makes money as an airport, then well and good. If it doesn’t then the land will always be worth at least what he paid for it.

If it closed for a few years then it would be put to an alternative use. I can’t see it closing for a few years then reopening as an airport again. Though hopefully it never comes to that and it reopens on 1 August as planned! They also bought Galway airport so maybe there is some interest in aviation behind it all

EIWT Weston, Ireland

dublinpilot wrote:

But I don’t think that there would have been much point in moving. Everywhere was starting to close and the country was preparing for lockdown at the time, so there would have been little point in moving. There still isn’t really given the travel restrictions until 20 July.

I know a few cases where owners moved to fields where there is a maintenance facility that would at least do the oft debated ground run for them. Hopefully back on Aug 1st as you say. NFC are starting a PPL ground school in June and sim training on July 6th so they’re positive signs.

EIMH, Ireland

FWIW, some airports in Poland are in C airspace when TWR is operational and switch to D or G when not. So airspace isn’t the issue there…

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland
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