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Legal action against pricing of some airports/handlers and funds gathering

During the week I will ask for confirmation from our legals, but from the current perspective I can not see anything that could “backfire” at anyone. We are about to file for investigation EU level and national levels, about abusing market positions. This is to be filed for regulatory bodies, that (hopefully) further investigate the issue. Why to be afraid of litigation?

EP..

That would be ok, I am sure.

It’s amazing what you found about the crowdfunding sites, with most not processing payments. That is surely the whole idea. People commit €X and if the target is reached, the credit card (or paypal) is debited. Obviously anybody could set that up privately but who is going to give any significant money to a private person, who could die, go bankrupt, crash their plane, etc I would be happy to do this but I think (a) the takeup would be small and (b) I don’t think it is right for me to be in charge of a significant size fund.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

That’s sad true. Majority of crowdfunding sites do not care about any form of processing. Simply handle money onto dedicated account (of course after taking the commission…). The one Emir used – is the same in this regard (and additionally to 5% charges circa 1,3% for money processing).

EP..

I think it won’t hurt to ask the law firm in question if they are willing to record our financial commitments and, once the amount is reached, accept the payments. After all, they do have proper arrangements to handle money and are already sufficiently trusted if we trust them with the case.

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

I will talk to them tomorrow, first asking generally if they could propose something for the problem that arose. Will report the results.

EP..

I asked the lawyers if they could propose something for this “safe account/ transfers” issue. There were no simply answer from them, eventually an idea about asking already existing organization like AOPA to help as a kind of the middle party (with their bank account and reputation). So I ended up talking with Mr Blazej Krupa (head of AOPA Poland) and asking for support.
Nice man, although not very optimistic about the final result of our endeavor (to put it mildly…). He promised to call Mr. Michel Erb (president of IAOPA) and get his opinion. So let’s wait few days, maybe indeed the IAOPA will be willing to get involved in this process, that would be great.
If not – we shall start anyhow, this way or other.

EP..

I will support this – I checked Eindhoven airport again and as you can see below while they were defeated in their previous efforts to keep GA away from that airport they have found another way.
What galls me of course is that the airlines do not pay excise tax on their fuel, GA pays 64 cents a litre in Europe, with the discriminatory practices of the airports added on top GA is double disadvantaged to the airlines in their use and access to public airports.
So in the end at public airports which are built and supported by EU and government funds (then the management and operations of the airport is leased out to a private company) we do not have free and equal access to public goods.

first the setup ; sounds very laudable
In order to guarantee an objective, transparent and non-discriminatory coordination of the capacity available for GA/BA traffic at Eindhoven Airport, there will be no distinction between regular users (GA/BA parties that have one or more aircraft based at Eindhoven Airport) and occasional users.

With the aim of efficiently distributing the scarce capacity, we use a reservation fee for PPR applications.

and then the sting:
3.5 The PPR reservation fee for General Aviation and Business Aviation is set to € 364.00

If this went ahead who would be the versus parties to the action please

Dear All,
We are eventually starting this campaign!

I am really sorry it took that long to move things forward, but the path with AOPA in Poland (and potential backing from IAOPA) did not work. After weeks of calling and asking for action I eventually gave up and started discussion with AOPA Hellas instead (lawyers strongly recommended having an aviation organization as a party in such process). With AOPA Hellas the talks were very effective, however there were Board elections at AOPA Hellas at end of Mai and this event delayed everything a bit.
But here we are, all is ready. There is an agreement between K&K Aviation Lawyers and AOPA Hellas for our legal action, there is also a crowdfunding site up and ready for our payments.
We are trying to collect 6500 Euro (6000 Euro – for K&K work, 500 – platform provision). The money will go for “a comprehensive legal analysis, which will attempt to justify whether the emerging practices constitute an abuse of the dominant position within the meaning of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU”. We will also get draft of complaint to the national competition authority of Poland and input for such for Greece. It is possible to add other countries as well, but support of local legal company (knowledgeable in local anti monopoly laws) is needed for that.
Once the sum is gathered – the money will go directly onto K&K account, AOPA Hellas is not involved in the money collecting process, it just gives us kind of formal representation of pilots for the sake of the legal process. There is no overflow set in the campaign, so once the total is reached – the collecting will stop and a transfer will be sent to trigger K&K job. If we do not manage to collect the whole amount – the process will not start. In such case the money will not be sent back to the donators, what to do with the remaining – tbdl (some unwanted scenario). And similarly if (for whatever reasons) some more money is needed – we will need to start a next crowdfunding campaign.
The collecting period – till end of July (1 month and a few days).
Let’s go and start it eventually!
Below there is a link to the crowdfunding site, more details there, please donate whatever you like:

https://gogetfunding.com/join-the-campaign-for-fair-airports-fees-for-general-aviation-flying-in-europe/

Bartek

EP..

Good luck! I have donated 250 quid.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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