Ah. Now that's much better! Thank you. :)
Hi,
Just for further clarification - This charge will not be applied to aircraft that use the ILS for landing at Southampton.
Mike
Elsewhere a Mr Mike Glen from the airport has confirmed they wont be charging for VFR/IFR transits - just (his example) cloud breaks under IFR flight conditions. ILS training or other charges are done separately in the usual way (pay on the ground, or pay on the phone later). He said the aforementioned document will be duly updated.
No it ain't great. You've only solved 1/3 of the problem - transits.
What remains is:
£50 for inbound IFR, and
£50 for outbound IFR.
That's still very high.
That's great - thanks for clarifying.
Hi All,
In relation to the Southampton International Airport Conditions of Use document as issued on the 28th March 2013, we can confirm that Southampton Airport will not be charging for IFR zone transits. We have never charged any aircraft for a zone transit under IFR or VFR conditions.
This charge relates to aircraft that utilise the ILS at Southampton for non-training purposes i.e. cloud breaks under IFR conditions. This charge should not be confused with the use of the ILS for training purposes, for which there is a separate charging structure that will come into effect on the 20th May 2013. We will provide further information on this if required.
The relevant paragraph within the Conditions Of Use document is being updated to make this position clear. The updated document will be posted on the Southampton Airport website shortly.
Southampton Airport has worked extremely hard over the past 18 months to engage with the GA community and to date have had over 150 general aviation pilots visit the airport to discuss airspace safety and general operations around the Solent zone. We would like to take this opportunity to extend this invitation to any club, organisation or syndicate that would like to visit us.
We fully intend to continue to engage with the G.A community. On behalf of Southampton Airport, If you have any further queries or comments please do not hesitate to contact me by email on [email protected] Please note that I am unable to respond to questions through this forum, I can only respond directly through email on the address as above.
Thank you.
Mike
Do they 'remind' you of the fee prior to entry?
I remember flying past the stub of Brize-Norton recently, and reflecting that next time I'm going to ask for a transit. Shorter for me, and probably better for them not to have a VFR aircraft in quite that position.
It is not published via random PFD on the internet, but in the AIP.
We were talking at crossed purposes. I was making a comment on the original post regarding Solent, not Sylt. Peter's link was to a PDF on Southampton Airport's web site. I was asking whether that charge was enforceable given someone may be unaware of it before transiting that airspace.
How are they going to collect the Solent transit fee from N-registered trafic?
This is what really stinks about this measure. Airports rarely employ people with more than 2 braincells in their admin departments (I've had so many run-ins with them over all kinds of cockups) so what they will do is look up the registered address and send a bill to the trustee, who will forward it to the owner, sometimes with a stroppy letter, and quite often with a bill for doing it.
That happens anyway, quite often, because you pay the landing fee but they lose the record and send you the bill. That's why I keep receipts for a year or so.
The other thing is that this is completely wrong in terms of aviation practice. A pilot planning a flight from A to B (say Lydd to Exeter) is not going to be reading the AIP entry for Southampton, just because he plans to transit their piece of Class D. That is completely contrary to the way aviation works at this level.
A lot of people, familiar with the area, will dogleg below the 2000ft airspace base instead of transiting via SAM, or they will do a "VFR" transit in VMC or IMC (which is less good from the ATC / separation point of view).
I believe Galway were the first to adopt this practice, although i don't know it for a fact.
