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List of most popular GA airports in Europe

Since the input comes from mostly Geman GA pilots, the list is biased somehow.
The top scoring airport is Leer-Papenburg EDWF, which wouldn’t be my top destination for Germany.
But I can see why it is on top of the list: Many reviews (116), a lot of recent reports and very high scores because of:
- Low landing fees (landing fee is waivered if you fuel there)
- Low fuel prices
- Friendly staff

LeSving wrote:

Nothing wrong with Avinor Airports (except they don’t seem to care much for GA the way they stop supplying Avgas, one by one), but they are not GA airports like Starmoen and Kjeller for instance.

@LeSving, the list is composed based input from eddh.de
There is no review on Starmoen
Kjeller is on the list (8th place). Remember it is based on Germans visiting Norway. That’s probably why Kristiansand is on #1: It’s easily located coming from the south.

Kristiansand is an international airport operated by Avinor. It is not a GA airport. It’s used also for GA, but it is nothing like a “real” GA airport like for instance Kjeller and many others (with no security, no fence, open for everybody).

I don’t know, maybe I’m completely misunderstanding the term GA airport ?

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Hi Lenthamen

first of all thanks a lot for this list and the tremendous amount of work that went into it.

I did a quick check on the list as well as on the specific country list of Switzerland.

While I think the idea is great to finally have someone do a statistic on the eddh reports, I wonder if the current formula returns something which reflects reality.

Looking at the Swiss list:

Zürich, with all the affection I have to that place, could never be in 3rd place based on popularity. Birrfeld and Grenchen, being the airfields/airports with most GA movements would have to be higher. Equally Samedan while well known is not really very popular due to their extreme taxes. e.t.c. From that point of view the formula off the statistic seems to have some flaws.

Also the fact that a place has a lot of reports does not really mean that it is popular, the opposite can be true.

I’ll have a look at your excel, also there I saw some rather startling results. But I am all for this list in general, I just think we should have a look at how to make it so it can get a more realistic image of the actual popularity. If you want me to, I ’ll help.

Switzerland, popular GA airports:
LSZL LOCARNO – 17 votes – 67 points
LSGL LAUSANNE-LA BLECHERETTE – 12 votes – 65 points
LSZH ZÜRICH – 20 votes – 62 points
LSZA LUGANO – 9 votes – 61 points
LSGC LES EPLATURES – 13 votes – 60 points
LSZS SAMEDAN – 29 votes – 60 points
LSZG GRENCHEN – 11 votes – 57 points
LSZR ST.GALLEN-ALTENRHEIN – 19 votes – 54 points
LSZF BIRRFELD – 7 votes – 54 points
LSGG GENEVE-COINTRIN – 17 votes – 53 points
LSGN NEUCHATEL – 9 votes – 52 points
LSGS SION – 8 votes – 51 points
LSZB BERN-BELP – 9 votes – 50 points
LSGE ECUVILLENS – 5 votes – 47 points
LSZQ BRESSAUCOURT – 6 votes – 47 points

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Hi Mooney_driver, here’s the raw data, so feel free to play with it :-)
Regarding your examples: I noticed that Zurich has many high reviews from the period 2003-2007 which might affect the total rating..

LeSving, I fail to see why an International airport can’t be a convenient airport for GA as well.
For example Dresden, Leipzig, Hannover are international airports that welcome GA.
In general, larger airports come with beter facilities (car rental, public transport, hotels, runway lighting, beter opening hours, etc).

lenthamen wrote:

I fail to see why an International airport can’t be a convenient airport for GA as well.

They certainly can be very convenient, but that’s not what the heading say.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Peter wrote:

I think, very likely, within any given country, the airports visited by “foreigners” will be substantially different to those visited by “locals”.

That’s not at all what I see. In Norway we usually go to Sweden and Denmark and further south to Germany and surrounding countries. How far depends on the cruise velocity of the aircraft. Visitors also come this way, from Denmark and Sweden and Germany via – and to smaller GA fields flying VFR mostly, and in microlights as well as PPL. The small minority flying IFR would of course rather go to IFR airfields, but that is a tiny minority indeed.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

There are no entries for the Baltics: I’d like to commend

Malmi EFHF superb airport with fantastic 700’ approach past the city (it would be lllegal anywhere else, here it’s required!). Malmi is under threat, closing 2017, needs help.

EEPU Parnuu far better option than Tallin for refuelling stop (unless you want the city!)

EYKT Kaunas/ Darius. Very GA, very helpful, English on the radio, landing fee 10 Euro, 100LL weekdays (cash or Euro card only), taxi to centre 10 mins 3.5Euro, super hotel. ‘Daugirdas’ re commended by tower.

EGBW / KPRC, United Kingdom

Aveling wrote:

EEPU Parnuu far better option than Tallin for refuelling stop (unless you want the city!)

I was recently in Tallinn and found it unreasonably expensive (both charges and fuel prices). But I did want the city.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 06 Sep 05:57
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Airborne,

Next time I go to Talinn, I will consider using Rapla (EERA) instead. An active GA airfield south of Talinn, even though a whopping 50 km away.

Here’s their website: http://eera.ee/english/

Looks like one can take a train from Rapla town direct to Talinn.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 06 Sep 07:34
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

In Baltic area are lot of good GA alternatives. Starting from
EPBC Babice Warsaw tram to city
EYKS Kaunas cheap taxi
EYPA Palanga nice for summerholiday
EVRS Spilve Riga bus to city
EEKE Kuresaari 2 miles from city centre
EEPU Paernu
EETU Tarto
All are cheap and no hassle places.

Matti
EFHV
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