Is being tight and slagging off airports a particularly British trait, in GA?

Timothy wrote:

It’s not just here. PPRuNe is slagged on Flyer, Flyer and PPL/IR are slagged on here, it’s a bit sad really.

I am not one for artificially surpressing debate. Each of the forums offer something different, and just like the politicians, if they arent prepared to listen to their contributors’ views (slagging off) then the contributors will go elsewhere. Euro GA has provided a forum for mature debate, a place the others occupied, but spoiled by a few with other intentions.

Peter wrote:

Subsidised by heavy traffic to an extent which makes light GA irrelevant. But yes what you have in Germany (in places; not the case at Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich…) is really great and long may it last.

That is true Peter. But if I look at my home field it has 1200 m hard runway, some hard parking, three types of fuel (AVGAS, MOGAS, JET A1) and an above average restaurant and still only costs 8€ to land and the fee is even waived if you refuel here (which is on average cheaper than anywhere within 100 nm). And this field has no CAT. Just the odd bizjet now and then.
Still compares very favourably with the UK. I guess the reason is that many airfields are seen as and financed as public infrastructure. I have no idea how they should otherwise break even.

All credit to Southampton for providing a few parking spaces on the general ramp for GA without “costly” handling – it is still too expensive, but a good start.

Southampton’s (day) rates are now very comparable to Lydd, Newquay, Cardiff and Blackpool, and half the price of Bournemouth!

For example Shoreham (c. £30) is widely slagged off

And unfairly too. There’s about two dozen airports in the UK more expensive than Shoreham but they never get slagged off to the same degree.

As to the question whether it’s a British thing to do this, it isn’t. There are such things happening all over, I’ve seen such remarks in German sites (EDDH in particular) where folks moan about 5 Euros more or less landing fees. It doesn’t go as far as calls for boycott usually (it has though in cases like Samedan and Elba in that places bad times) but one wonders how people think these airports should work if nobody wants to pay even a small fee.

Personally I think that most of those posts are simply ridiculous and what is more they hamper justified posts about airports where charges ARE unreasonable.

Then again, in today’s world of all the check- and report sites around, lots of people get a huge kick out giving marks to just about everything… Generation Internet run wild. Maybe they still have fantasies about getting back on their own Snape character out of primary school….

Some thread drift but I went to sandown a few weeks ago and I was throughly impressed.

I wasn’t going to arrive till about 2000 so rang for PPR. Was told PPR isn’t really required.land when I want park some where sensible and pay the landing and parking fee when I leave 3 days later.

I’ve no idea how much it cost but it wasn’t alot and everyone was very friendly. Bembridge could be free as far as I am concerned but due to the good reception I had at sandown I would go there as my first choice.

AOPA (US) have made a big thing out of this with places like Jackson Hole, Wyoming which I overnighted a couple years back. Well aware of their landing fee policy (a punitive $20!) I remarked to the FBO that it felt “just like home”. A considerable (friendly) discussion ensued, touching on the vast deserted ramps and sparcity of airplane ownership in Europe.. The point about ‘slippery slopes’ was apparently well taken. see AOPA page.

No one factor is enough on it’s own to explain the different utilities of GA between US and Europe, but it’s not good enough to fall back on ‘the weather’ as a catchall explanation. All of these smaller issues, like landing fees and ‘handling’, have drip drip drip effect on GA and IMHO UK and other pilots are quite correct to continue to gripe about this. After all, the amounts of money harvested by means of punitive GA charges must be completely negligible in terms of the overall running costs of the organisations concerned (hello, Newcastle) because of the minimal volume.

How much drawback would he get on that trip?