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

Ibra wrote:

the actual implementation will take a lot of time tough

You don’t say. Officially, the Swedish CAA hasn’t admitted that it is in fact legal and we know that there are people who are very strongly against it.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Easier and cheaper access to GPS approaches for smaller airfields could be one way.

EU (EASA & EGNOS) had very worrying agenda as they managed to legalise IFR on GPS to every airfield with non-instrument runway without ATS (this concept may not please one or two pilots who still fly on VOR), that was good news for IFR GA operating in small airfields, the actual implementation will take a lot of time tough

The bad news, EU regulations removed lot state involvement in bigger airports, for instance it removed the job of “airport director” in many countries (some “public servant” appointed by NAA and paid by state to run a, ahem sit in, the airport, some of these guys were pilots who also got their PPL paid by the state), these ADR regulations paved the way for monopoly & privatisation of few regional airports, handling is one side effect of it

Surely there are some successful examples (Sweden?) and bad examples (Greece?), the worst are places where state bureaucracy is allied to greedy business !

The best of the two worlds is to have “limited basic level of service” (30€ flat basic handling) but I think it’s matter of lobbying at EU/state level for easy win than costly endless legal battles IMHO

Last Edited by Ibra at 23 May 09:46
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Is the view that Brussels was correct that it was a national matter, or were they just “passing the buck”?

If they were correct, then not much can be done. But if they were just “passing the buck”, then perhaps the letter to them and their reply could be disemenated and then individuals could bring the matter up with their MEPs? Perhaps a co-ordinated attempt to have mutliple MEPs from different countries ot bring up the issue might get a better responce from Brussels without any additional cost.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

smaller GA fields in the vicinity, and that those are adequately equipped (IFR, night)

And links to ground transport.

ELLX

The plan was to settle the issue at the EU level, unfortunately it did not work out, ECs does not care

That seems to be the issue. It is below Brussels’ radar.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Gentlemen, I am also flying, I am fully aware that the situation is still bad. But this particular attempt is long over and unfortunately it did not work out…
From the money we collected the legal team did what it was contracted for, there was a thorough analysis, the complaint to the EC bodies and their response – “go national levels, this is not our business”. In case of Poland the national level complaints were neither working before this EU attempt (various unsuccessful tries of local’s AOPA) nor after, so no surprise in that.
The plan was to settle the issue at the EU level, unfortunately it did not work out, ECs does not care. The legal team we contracted concluded that according to their knowledge they see no sense in the appeal. If they were right or wrong – hard to judge…
The national level probing is beyond my capabilities, I am not IAOPA or similar, just a private individual, the alone EC route was draining enough.
The whole process was conducted with the close cooperation with AOPA Greece. There were money we collected through donations and also some extra money/time AOPA Greece devoted. Out of the sum collected through the crowdfunding there is still one hundred Euro left. My proposal is that I will buy beer for that during some next fly-inn, so that we could commemorate this fallen attempt in a bit better moods…
And the final message if anyone in doubt – out of this lengthy proceeding I did not get/took a single penny, in any form of remuneration.

EP..

I’m not specialized in competition law, so maybe there’s something to miss. But seen from a distance the idea of pursuing airports to offer lower fees sounds misleading to me. It isn’t even a monopoly situation, because as GA we’re in fact not bound to land at big infrastructures. We can land on private airstrips.

The best option I see is what has been achieved by AOPA in Spain. I don’t know the details on how it was introduced, but there you have a “basic fee option” on all big airports and are not requested to order a handling agent. This is around 10 Euros.

However, this needs lobbyism and legislation rather than law suits.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

and that those are adequately equipped (IFR, night)

Regarding better infrastructure this is another story. Easier and cheaper access to GPS approaches for smaller airfields could be one way. Those installations come expensive and someone has to pay for it. There’s seldom a free lunch in aviation.

Last Edited by UdoR at 23 May 08:04
Germany

Airborne_Again wrote:

That’s what he said, and that’s what I thought I was contributing money to!

Well, a legal action like this would need a war chest of several 100k if not millions to get the attention it needs. 6.5 k might buy a “stiff lawyers letter” if anything. So frankly I am not at all surprised at the outcome.

To be clear: The fight against outpricing and handling on larger airports has imho been lost already and even if single airports might be moved to relent, the trend is more than clear. GA has no more place on those mainly due to privatisation and the consequence that they are no longer regarded as public infrastructure but private commercial entities.

In order to reverse this process, the only way to force airports to actually do their job and accomodate all traffic would be a legislation declaring them public infrastructure and prohibit access restrictions in any form. That on the other hand would need massive political lobbying as well as a massive war chest of several million Euros only to get something like this started. On the basis of a legislation like this, it would be relatively easy to then sue airports in non compliance, even though seeing how many EU countries don’t give a warm fart about EU legislation when it serves their own purposes to ignore it, it would again be a process which takes years and LOTS of €€€€€ in every single case.

The more it is necessary to make sure that there are sufficient and adequate alternatives for GA, such as smaller GA fields in the vicinity, and that those are adequately equipped (IFR, night) Was this infrastructure available, not many people would even consider using CAT airports. Where it is not, this is where GA needs support to force the available airports to accomodate us. But to force this through a legal process, you need a dedicated group of lawyers whose primary goal is, maybe out of self interest (there are flying lawyers I guess), to get the job done, not to cash in money for writing some impressive looking letters which they know in advance won’t do anything but fill their own pockets.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

I did think you were trying to take legal action, not lobby work.

That’s what he said, and that’s what I thought I was contributing money to!

Bart wrote:

a proposal of legal dealing against the excess prices of airports/ handlers in Europe
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Bart wrote:

Not much to add, the Polish CAA did not bother to answer, no extra news in this subject.
For me personally the attitude of EC bodies was a total disaster here. National CAA’s are well aware of the handling problems GA is facing and in general they do not care. But exactly the same at the level of EC – it was more than a surprise for me…

I did think you were trying to take legal action, not lobby work. Take them to court and see if those charges can’t be taken down by a verdict and court order.

Relying on CAA’s or the EC bodies is a waste of time in most places. (Though I hasten to add that our CAA has so far found ways to stop our large airpots banning GA quite effectively, if not totally hasslefree, but at least they are not letting them do what they want. Kudos to the FOCA for that, but their power is limited.)

What is needed is a EU wide verdict to outlaw abusive handling charges, compulsory handling traps, outpricing and hampering international air traffic in the form of PPR / PNR and unnecessary Slot regulation. Make airports behave like public infrastructure to which taxpayers have a law given right of use. Anything else is a waste of time.

Last Edited by Mooney_Driver at 22 May 20:50
LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
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