On the positive side. There is an official opening of the “new” GA airport at Arendal (ENGK) in June this year. The whole place have been totally redone, and received a new and longer runway (1200 m), and is VFR day/night. I think it actually was finished a year or so ago, but they still have no fuel!!
Operators there are a couple of local clubs, a flight school, EHC (helicopter) and air ambulance. It is a private airport (not Avinor) and 100% GA. But their long term plans are to develop it further into a larger aerodrome. Time will show, as of today it is a nice GA addition in that part of the country, just too bad it’s no fuel there (what are they thinking?)
Anyway, I’m slightly positive about the future wrt GA with remote towers and in general better ATC. GA in general has no use for ATC, but better ATC will make it better also for GA.
We had this a couple of years back here with Bressaucourt (LSZQ). Same thing, a lovely new GA field as a replacement for an old one which was very close to a city.
This however is a pure VFRday/night GA field without any ambitions for airlines.
The other place where a lot of new airfields have popped up in recent years is Bulgaria. And they are quite lovely too.
Primorsko (LBPR) is a lovely GA field at the black sea with very low taxes. They also have avgas but unfortunately no immigration.
There are quite some others like Lesnovo, Ichtiman, Gorna Banya, Balchik and others, which all belong to the same organisation. For Immigration, Sofia (with AOPA card), Plovdiv (no Avgas) and Gorna Oryachovitsa are recommended.
dublinpilot wrote:
Realistically, I can’t imagine any regional airport, able to generate 1 movement every 3 minutes, all day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
It’s interesting that you picked those numbers. My US base has one GA movement every 2.4 minutes on that basis, which is BTW about 600 movements per day. If I understand correctly, that’s six times the number of aircraft movements that @Mooney_Driver was suggesting as a reasonable GA airport volume.
Arendal and Bressaucourt look very nice.
Silvaire wrote:
It’s interesting that you picked those numbers. My US base has one GA movement every 2.4 minutes on that basis, which is BTW about 600 movements per day. If I understand correctly, that’s six times the number of aircraft movements that @Mooney_Driver was suggesting as a reasonable GA airport volume.
But that’s not a regional airport in Europe, mixing airlines and GA traffic, and there simply isn’t as much GA traffic here.
Colm
The ones I listed are well in Switzerland…
Another thing I’d add with poor airport management is due to the comparative weak lobbying GA has.
People don’t want to put their money or time there. Some only look out for themselves and are happy if they can fly out from their private farm strip and visit other private farm strips. There isn’t a coherent voice to the government/city/transport planners. In the UK, many smaller airports were running out of disused sites that faced closure from property development, leaving the larger airports filled with red tape, with mandatory handling fees gone out of control and sold to investors who think all of GA are bizjet owners. The Department for Transport almost never heard of GA until MP Grant Shapps mentioned the safeguarding of a network of airports.
One thing I’m certain of is that the US taxpayer isn’t subsidising the Cessna 152 pilot about US$800 for each landing and handling at JFK, but expect to be charged this amount for an equivalent sized airport and runway utilisation in certain countries in Europe.
In my flying experience, GA at airports in countries like France, Germany, Switzerland, Channel Islands, and Ireland on the whole seem to run much better than the UK, Italy, and countries in the south east of Europe, but even then nothing matches the vast quantity, variety, availability, and accessibility of airports in the USA.
what_next wrote:
“We” Europeans – at least a great part – are used to pay for the services we receive.
Really? Then when you come to the US, try digging into your pockets and tipping the wait staff (waiters and Waitresses). There the experience is Europeans are known not to tip for services. Maybe because its optional and the honor system and they feel unconstrained and so leave little or nothing. Not to be caustic but such a statement demands a pushback.
what_next wrote:
Buses need roads as well. And again – here in Europe at least – we pay road taxes for every vehicle we own and fuel taxes for every liter of fuel we use, and with which the roads are built and maintained. People who don’t use roads at all don’t have to pay for roads.
Ok to bring up another sore point since you are so quick bring up the point that services should be paid for, if you are the beneficiary of that service. How about funding your National Defence. You signed an agree to fund 2% of your GDP for NATO. So why is Poland paying more than your government?
That’s incorrect, no matter how many times it is repeated.
There is NO signed agreement about the “2 percent”, it was loosely agreed on that the goal is to work towards the 2 percent, that’s it. There was no date set*.
The tipping comment was completely unnecessary, most Germans do tip just like Americans. But while we’re at it, what Germans do not like is the new fashion, like in NYC and some other places, to put the tip on the bill automatically. I regularly let them take it off and THEN tip them.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The first and foremost item here has to be the reckognition that airports as well as airfields ARE infrastructure!In Europe, that is not something which goes easy with some people. While they may take for granted that there are large airline purpose airports and those are infrastructure, GA airports are often regarded as a playing field for the rich and filthy on the back of the proletariat. And that is totally wrong. Regional airports and airfields, as long as they are open to the public, ARE infrastructure and deserve the same public support other infrastructure gets without a 2nd thought!
Price out GA on certain airports or limit the number of movements to a fixed amount and all that is something which nobody would consider on roads or other infrastructure. EVERYONE who uses that infrastructure pais his dues and the remainder is picked up by the taxpayer, it works for roads, railways and everything, so why not for airports.
Airport managers have a difficult position indeed unless they also own the airport, when the difficulties become different, not necessarily less. Those who are civil servants or head publicly funded companies on airports have the unenvionable task of satisfying all of politicians, anti noise groups, tenants and, often least of all, the users of the airport. With airports increasingly becoming shopping centers first and airports sencond, that is not always a very easy task. Maybe it would be a good thing if the FBO system as it is run in the US would be tried out in Europe, let GA be served by a dedicated company who does not do that by the by but as it’s primary reason of being. Ah well, maybe some da
Cant agree more. Spoke with AOPA and IAOPA is trying to do exactly that to have GA airports become part of the National Transportation infrastructure. AT least that is what is happen when I heard it the beginning of this year.
The only thing I would like to bring up is that those same Rip Off Handling companies are FBOs you just dont recognize it because they provide very little if anything for your benefit.
