Claire
Service trafic/opérations
Aéroport de Béziers Cap d’Agde
34420 PORTIRAGNES
Tel: +33 4 67 809 912
Fax: +33 4 67 809 913
SITA: BZRAMXH
FREQ OPS/ 131.55 Mhz
http://www.beziers.aeroport.fr/2-34182-Aviation-privee.php
www.beziers.aeroport.fr
[email protected]
Is it any wonder these guys have the capacity to make any business go bankrupt? Here you have several aircraft potentially purchasing 1000s of litres of Avgas but because of management’s mental attitude, these potential customers are actually investigating flying elsewhere to refuel. Obviously their paycheck does not include amount of fuel sales.
Yes simply incredible! In the USA, sometimes you land and have two separate fuel guys run out to the aircraft offering fuel at different prices with other things like cleaning or a lunch, thrown in for free. They fight hard for the business while airports in Europe just turn it away. At least in southern Europe, “Cash is King” and if you have cash, you can usually always get something to work.
Sometimes I get a sense that people think Im bragging about the US, Which is not my intention. Having been an employee for numerous business, then an employer as well as a small business owner I have a difficult time accepting this type of attitude. Now dont get me wrong different parts of the US have different attitudes toward work which was frustrating to deal with coming from NY. There is some truth to the statement, “in a NY minute”.
I thought about getting a Total or BP card but since I bank in the US it would be a royal PITA to pay the bill each month with bank transfers as well as expensive. Right now I use an ATM no charge to me and have 1% or sometimes less conversion rate difference from what the $ to Euro is pegged to. So I guess I will be running around with 1000 Euros in my pocket.
To get back on tread Looking forward to LFKM. My girlfriend will take time off and hopefully we can do some exciting things while there. Looking to do some guided tours which I briefly looked at earlier. So My route of flight will be LHTL to EDMA to LFKM and back. With a possible stopover in Paris LFPN to see Michaels new shop.
C210_Flyer wrote:
Is it any wonder these guys have the capacity to make any business go bankrupt? Here you have several aircraft potentially purchasing 1000s of litres of Avgas but because of management’s mental attitude, these potential customers are actually investigating flying elsewhere to refuel. Obviously their paycheck does not include amount of fuel sales.
You know what? I think the main difference between the way fuel and all that is dealt with here and in the US is that the FBO concept as it is known in the US is totally unknown here for the most part.
An FBO who sells fuel and lives of that as well as the services they do render to their customers will darn well see that you can have fuel when ever you want it, pay with whatever you want and want to attract business. They are their own business and as such a client of the airport.
On most of the larger airports, fuel companies take care of refuelling. Most of those only reluctantly if at all operate an avgas truck. For them, Avgas does not count in the statistics of things, they refuel one A320 with 6000 kgs of Jet A1 and are happy with it. To refuel 30 liters into a Cessna is no business for them and often Avgas trucks are run at a loss in such places or account for hefty surcharges. The same goes for self service: Air BP or Total or who else puts these stations up want their cards and only those. And they can get away with it too. An FBO could not.
That is why on many larger airports where small GA is abouot as welcome as a mosquito during a sundowner, these guys simply do not care, don’t want to care or even have very practical reasons not to support visitors. Aeroclubs get their contingent of movements and are told, whatever visitors produce will be substracted of yours. So they don’t want visitors. All this has system, the larger airports do not care and don’t want to care about small GA, even if they do make money out of them.
I had a discussion like that with the manager of a pretty large airport which mainly caters to LCC’s. Ever since those arrived, small GA is treated like a cow treats flies around it’s head: It’s accepted because they have to but generally felt like a nuissance. His argument was simple: One 737 brings the airport 10’000.- Euros per rotation, requires 4 people to handle it and is gone after one hour. One Cessna will bring 30 Euros. They have maybe 30 small planes on a nice summer day, so that would be 900 Euros. For the figure counters, they simply don’t care for small GA and on a financial level that is even understanable.
It would be different if GA were to be taken care by an organisation which in itself as a renter and financial income takes care of the “flies” and all the airport has to care about is getting paid for the taxes. In other words, an FBO. But many airports will not have those either because they ideologically do not want small GA.
I think the “problem” in France is that many/most airports are taxpayer funded and with no apparent monitoring or accountability. This leads to poorly controlled expenditure and stupid procedures which cause the loss of traffic, but nobody working there cares because for 99% of people the #1 job is getting paid. Eventually this leads to the usually sudden closure of the airport – as soon as the bean counter wakes up, or a new bean counter appears on the scene who is not “in” with the airport management… This is exactly what led to the problems at Shoreham where I am based; a formerly local govt owned/run airport with zero oversight of operations. It narrowly avoided getting shut down – it was avoided only because the local govt planning policy wants a “green” patch in place to separate Worthing from Lancing!
But, just maybe, the have found there is no loss of traffic because actually almost nobody in France flies to airports like Carcassonne? Last year I went to Rouen (a similar “class” of airport) on a nice weekend day, and the place was deserted. Maybe one plane parked. Same at Dinard. So maybe French GA activity takes place mostly between little club strips? I have heard quite a lot from pilots down there which seems to point this way. Or maybe French pilots don’t buy fuel at these places, and fill up back at base? That would correlate with the often reported very short average flight distances, obviously.
Probably if you analysed flying patterns in most countries you would see similarly bizzare things.
Anyway, here is a google maps photo of the airport. There are three obvious aprons, with the middle one presumably reserved for airliners
There seems to be a huge amount of parking, which doesn’t square up with the email I got back from their management saying they cannot park 10 small aircraft!
I guess I will join the close or restrict the F whenever I can and see if they can eat that for breakfast. If they cant make a profit or belly up too bad.
Why should I care? What did they do for me?
I have the same crap going on at LHBP. The place actually is made up of two airports. When you look at arriving and departing flights on the board you would think it was really busy until you realize that they are the same plane going to the same airport but since they are codeshare flights they list the codeshare airlines on a separate line. The place is totally under utilized.
What bugs me even more is that most of these airport operators are basically subsidized operations that collect their fee and profit while the govt pays for all the expenses. I wonder what they would have to charge if they actually had to buy the airport, pay a mortgage on the airport and yearly land taxes? Then pay for all the employees staff maintenance equipment etc. Without govt support could they still afford as at some airports that have two Ryan Aires come in per day?
I used to say the US has the best govt money can buy, but now it looks like they are one of many that can and are bought off.
You beat me too a similar answer. in your post.
Peter wrote:
There seems to be a huge amount of parking, which doesn’t square up with the email I got back from their management saying they cannot park 10 small aircraft!
It might be that those other areas are leased out and they dont have any control over them. But if that were the case you would think they (airport authority) would give us a phone number or email to contact that organization. I found it rare even in the land of lawsuits and lawyers (USA) that people would not help out.
Perhaps a note to the local Chamber of Commerce obtaining help around these road blocks. Afterall its there businesses affected.
There are two potential aprons where we can park:
The other aprons are either for large aircraft, or for the ENAC flight academy, and AFAIU we will NOT be welcome there. Incidentally, that’s also where the fuel pump is.
After having spoken to them on the phone I wrote to Carcassonne OPS yesterday to ask yet again about payment facilities for fuel, and added a question about parking availability, specifically asking if the “pelicandrome” would be available. I am still waiting for a reply. If I do not get one I will call yet again.
A pelicandrome is AFAIK a waterbomber base. I guess they will want to keep it free for these puroposes.
