Can you turn down the “nav fee” if you’re VFR? It’s not like they are navigating for you.
alioth wrote:
Can you turn down the “nav fee” if you’re VFR? It’s not like they are navigating for you.
No, I think that because they’ve failed to agree the remote towers (and centralisation of ATS) with the unions, they are ramping up the fees…
LeSving wrote:
That’s pretty much how GA works in Norway, when using Avinor airports that is. You pay a yearly fee. This is dependent on MTOW. It’s about €500 and up, €1000+ for a C-172. What you get is ATC obviously, free transport to/from the aircraft, free parking – sort of, but you get free (and secured) parking regardless. It’s not nothing, but it’s not cheap either. I’m not sure if this reflects the actual cost, perhaps?, but it depends on how much you fly obviously.
I agree this is quite steep, but it does one thing:
- It gives you the freedom and actual incentive to fly rather than asking yourself every time “do I want to spend another $$$$” at this airport.
- It also gives you the freedom to land at any of those airports without qualms. That, in bad weather or in case of a diversion may well save lives.
If we could get this kind of flat fees or a capping of fees for GA dependent on weight and number of passenger seats (basically below 2T/6seats) it would be a major step forward. Obviously this kind of usage fee would have to be Europe wide and not country wise. But I for one, despite the fact that I don’t fly much, would gladly pay some up front fee every year if it means that I am then free to fly wherever I want, how often I want and that I would not be fleeced for imposing on an airport which does not want me.
(Apart, even if 1000 Euros per year sounds a lot, concerning the airports we are talking about, that is between 5 and 10 rotations these days. If that pais for all of them for the whole year? Hell yes.)
HIAL is actually owned by the Scottish Government. So one would think that it’s not business pressures driving this change.
Has anyone asked them the reason for it?
Looking a bit closer at this, I don’t see where the super high charges come from?
Landing fee for private aircraft not exceeding 2730 kg is £26.77
Parking per ton per 24 h : £3.67
For aircraft not exceeding 2 tons there are:
HIAL landing card : £1630.05 per year (Inverness excluded)
Home base landing card : £514.73 per year (Inverness excluded)
Inverness on the other hand is not cheap at all.
IMO this is pretty reasonable. Landing and parking overnight is about £30. But I guess I’m missing something?
They are the old rates. New rates apply from 1 April 2024. See the link on the first post.
OK, didn’t scroll enough 
Instead of £30 for a night it becomes (parked for 12 h) :
21 + 15 + 40 + 20 = £96
More than 3 times the cost. That’s insane.
Highland Aviation have already updated their website. So sad.
GA is dying from a thousand cuts.
Can someone local dig if this change is the result of a political orientation or a pure bean counter decision ?
A part of the problem is that very little GA goes to these places, so not much pressure to change anything.
