I have just received an invoice through the post from this organisation relating to a landing I made in Dusseldorf. There is a charge from DFS and a charge from DWD (the meterological services). The question is simply why? I asked before going what the TOTAL cost would be for using the airport and paid already substantially more than quoted by email (because they “forgot” to include something in the quote) and now this. What a total rip-off!
Comments please. BTW I have no objection to paying fees but I strongly object to the way fees are misquoted and then levered upwards.
This is odd. I have made several landings at DUS. The fees are consistent and transparent and entirely paid through the GAT handling company. The fees are also laid out in the PDF on their website.
While I find a “waste disposal fee” of 5 euro something an odd thing for a light SEP, I’ve so far deemed the total cost of round about 70 EUR for using such an airport quite ok.
Would you mind sharing what you paid on premise and what you’re asked to pay now?
Did you arrive IFR?
I often get “navigation fees” charged by DFS and DWD when arriving IFR in Germany. This is basically the charge for the instrument approach. Everyone I’ve been, the people at the airport have no idea it exists.
DFS charges you for IFR terminal services. Very common in Germany and never invoiced by the airport/handler.
For some reason DFS believe that they are better off invoicing the terminal charges themselves instead of using Eurocontrol’s charging services. The fees are due for all IFR procedures at certain German airports. It has been like that for a very long time.
Other countries charge terminal charges, too. Sometimes via the airport, sometimes via Eurocontrol route charges. In Austria, the Austrocontrol fees are charged by the airport. Holland uses Eurocontrol.
Thanks achima, so does that mean as we were a 100% VFR flight we need not pay? It was also interesting to note that on departure all ATC services were terminated with “own navigation” instruction BEFORE we had left the airport perimeter and below 1000 feet!!
The fees are also levied for VFR flights. Here you find the details: https://www.dfs.de/dfs_homepage/de/Services/Geb%C3%BChren/AIC%20IFR%20%201%20(13).pdf
The DFS fee applies to a handful of big German airports, VFR or IFR.
Also, the airport (whilst known for high and complicated invoices) didn’t really do anything wrong by not quoting the DFS fee. It’s simply a different sphere for them, nothing to do with airport fees. I know, in Britain, it all ends up on the airport invoice, but in Germany it is, well, different.
It’s 15€, so get on with it I would say.
What I would not have accepted is the 5 € waste disposal fee. It is surprising how many people don’t go through airport invoices before handing over the credit card, assuming that it “will be alright”. It often isn’t, particularly with MTOW, noise category and number of pax!
BTW: in Germany, airports need their fee schedule to be approved by the regulator, otherwise it is void. There was a case in Hahn (EDFH) which turned from GA heaven to GA hell where a pilot appealed the invoice in court and won. They did not have their price list approved.
Airport invoices is very much a “other people’s money” thing. Paid pilots pay with the money of the aircraft owner so don’t care much. If I take all cases in my life where I have appealed invoices, it feels like 80% of it was at an airport. It is quite appalling actually.
..and that, in turn, is one reason why big airports hate “small” aircraft…
…because the pilots of the small ones (usually owner flown) seem to contest every penny on the invoices, whereas the pilots of large GA aircraft (usually not owner-flown) just blindly hand over the credit card and never seem to make any fuss…
