The following has appeared on one UK “burger run chat site”
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AIUI, a SEP used to cost £15 before this, so a £3 price hike for a typical one.
It so happens that the poster texted me not so long ago regarding where to stay in Mali Losinj, which is about 200x the above price increment just in avgas.
Bembridge EGHJ is not the usual water-logged mud-pit. It has a hard runway:
Is that post not a piss take at all the UK burger run I won’t pay to land mob.
12 quid seems quite reasonable to me
I’d say it may be reasonable on the British scale of landing fees, but the British scale itself is not quite so reasonable. Even without public money, there are ways to keep the landing fees much lower without running the airfield into the red. Various shows and festivals come to mind, not necessarily aviation-related – closing the airfield for 1-2 days is normal if the revenue from that pays for its upkeep for a year.
Bembridge has no hard parking but it has a hard runway. I have never seen a financially standalone airfield with a hard runway which was in a good condition and was cheap, say €10. Also the owner has to make some money otherwise he may as well sell it to a property developer. He might support GA but when he dies his widow will probably just sell the place (the usual pattern).
While everybody is entitled to boycott an airfield for their own personal reasons, what I find so objectionable are the pilot forum calls for boycotting a place. Some of these national “burger-run” sites are read by a lot of people and a bad word spreads very fast and very wide. When you look at the posters, most of the sh1t spreading is done by people who fly less than 10hrs a year… For example Shoreham (c. £30) is widely slagged off and boycotted but there is actually nothing wrong with it (it has great ATC and is in a very good condition) and the area is great for a walkabout by the river, eating, etc.
Here on EuroGA, we would not allow a GA airfield to be trashed in this way for no reason, just as we don’t allow a person to be trashed or outed. I have enough emails from airfields saying how it affects them…
Hi all,
considering even a 10h yearly would be in the upper three lower four figures in EUR/GBP lashing out on a one figure rise seems a bit on the whiny side to say the least. I just wonder how many of the 20 people were non flyers who had to put up with a rant about this during their lunch…
Another perspective is to consider what the cost of a go-around would be – say an extra 6 minutes at solo hire rate of £140 or more. I’d hope any pilot wouldn’t think twice about the cost of a go-around if it were needed yet somehow paying a similar amount for a single landing is thought outrageous.
Alternatively, add up all the landing fees paid throughout the year as a proportion of your total annual flying spend. In my case, even with some hefty fees paid at larger IFR airports, I’d doubt it was more than 10%. If it’s really such a high cost factor, your could bring a passenger along or buddy fly with another pilot on the basis that they contribute of pay for the landing fee.
Airfields and airports do need to at least cover their costs otherwise they will disappear. Sadly I can’t see us becoming like the USA where everything is highly subsidised.
Of course everyone has some limit where we think there is price deterrence against using an airport, whether that’s £30 or £100 or £1000 (reputedly the cost at Gatwick), but the vast majority of places accessible to GA aren’t too bad. I’d much prefer that our wrath be directed at the few regional airports who have very high landing and handling fees.
One argument I’ve heard is where the cost of operating a flying machine is so very much lower and the mission profile is to land frequently, say every 20-30 mins, in grass strips etc. I could see the landing fees would start to add up. But the flip side is that you can use use of more “out of the way” places which is a joy unavailable to everyone and typically those are very low cost or free.
The local council who tax the airfield probably has no idea that a movement comprising a PA28 is any different from a movement involving a 747! I have heard of airfields where the tax based on movements is higher than you could possibly earn, because the same council then limits the number of movements!
In France the Chamber of Commerce supports small airfields, in the UK they are homing points for the rich.
Another perspective is to consider what the cost of a go-around would be – say an extra 6 minutes at solo hire rate of £140 or more. I’d hope any pilot wouldn’t think twice about the cost of a go-around if it were needed yet somehow paying a similar amount for a single landing is thought outrageous.
People here in the UK moan about go-around costs too… unfortunately these have to be billed otherwise all the local PPL schools will be doing low approaches there and you either end up with reduced capacity or you get complains due to noise. In my PPL we used to do low approaches to farm strips around Sussex but I have since found out that they all really hate it.
A go-around due to genuine operational reasons (e.g. a runway incursion) should not be charged (and is not charged at Shoreham) but how do you manage this at an unmanned airfield?
in the UK they are homing points for the rich.
They do seem to be regarded as such by those outside GA. In reality I think the majority of participants struggles to find the money for each flight… I just wish they didn’t slag off at every online opportunity the infrastructure without which they would be at best jumping off the nearest hill with a parachute on their back.
Personally it wouldn’t stop me from going there.
I don’t think it’s necessarily being “tight” but feeling like they are not getting value for money. I suspect the airfield owner has good reason to be charging these fees (they might not get that much traffic, and even if they made the landing fee nil it probably wouldn’t increase the traffic much, and they do have costs even if they don’t have paid staff – someone’s still got to mow the grass, fix potholes, etc. etc. not to mention council tax – I inherited a very modest property in the UK recently – probably not worth £100k – and the council tax bill is shocking) But I can certainly understand why people dislike this intensely. Compare Bembrige – no services, not even a club house – you pay £18 for a PA-28.
Let’s compare that with Gloucester – £16 if you buy 50L fuel, or £20 if you don’t.
Gloucester has:
Or compare Blackpool – IIRC I paid about £18 the other week:
Blackpool has:
I can fully understand why someone feels like Bembridge’s landing fee is not value for money when it’s similar to airfields with lots of services. But I can also understand why the owner of Bembridge might have to charge what he or she does. If they spoke to the owner they might get a different perspective, and someone’s got to pay for this stuff.
