HIAL (Scotland) airport charges going through the roof (and an improvement)

boscomantico wrote:

Yes, but AIUI for that flight from RoI to NI, the NI airport must still be a “regulated” one.

The text from your screenshot seems to suggest otherwise. “Unregulated aerodromes within NI are permitted to receive domestic, CTA or EU Flights”. (CTA=Common Travel Area which includes ROI).

In any case, the ones that I’d most likely use will have a CofA. It’s the Scottish Islands that I like to use don’t have any permanent presence which means they don’t have a CofA.

The GARs are relatively straightforward to file nowadays. Just make sure you press Submit at the end, and get a separate email for each one you file.

If you think the GAR is complicated, try going non-schengen to EBOS…

Pirho wrote:

Can you explain a bit more, about why you can’t fly from Northern Ireland to Colonsay? My understanding is that flights from Northern Ireland to GB do not concern themselves with Customs & Excise nor Border Force. Only notification to Police is required (assuming a non police designated aerodrome).

Apparently I was under the mistaken belief that they needed a C of A too. But Boscomantico’s quote clarifies that they don’t.

That’s good news for me, so thanks for asking the question! It seems that I can fly to an unregulated airport in Scotland, by submitting a GAR for a flight to Northern Ireland, and then from there to Scotland (and the same in reverse). Messy, but better than the alternatives.

dublinpilot wrote:

(Eg Colonsay doesn’t have a cert of agreement and can’t accept traffic from Ireland – or indeed from Northern Ireland, a part of the UK!).

Can you explain a bit more, about why you can’t fly from Northern Ireland to Colonsay? My understanding is that flights from Northern Ireland to GB do not concern themselves with Customs & Excise nor Border Force. Only notification to Police is required (assuming a non police designated aerodrome).

boscomantico wrote:

Could it be that the navigation charge is only if using an instrument approach or so?

The official HIAL price lists have been updated: https://www.hial.co.uk/hial-group/general-aviation-4/1

Highland Aviation at Inverness hasn’t (yet) updated their website: https://highlandaviation.com/pages/handling-ppr

HIAL’s original email to me said this (not very clear):

In your correspondence, you mentioned navigation fees. As part of HIAL’s review of its conditions of use and airport charges, the presentational format of HIAL’s fees and charges was reviewed to detail individual services provided. This is commonplace across other airports in Scotland.

HIAL’s landing fee has historically combined a navigation element. From 1 April 2024 this fee has been separated to detail the landing and navigation fees.

HIAL has introduced a navigation fee for practice approach and touch and go movements.

In any case the navigation charge was charged to me for my VFR trip to Islay (but combined with the landing fee into one line item (which is somewhat ironic given the apparent rationale for updating the way the fees are listed in the fees & charges documents)).

@dublinpilot have old friends at Islay so hoping it is not made too uneconomic? Perth is still very GA friendly.

An interesting anecdote is that the rather imposing Islay House was owned by an american who was Lieutenant Idi Amin’s pilot.