Silvaire wrote:
I’ve flown in there just for the fun and experience on long flights but haven’t parked due to the cost involved.
You don’t have to park to get charged. Recently I pulled onto the ramp at Fayatteville, North Carolina where Signature are the only FBO to check the weather and the big picture. On leaving after a few minutes I was presented with a $50 bill !!! When I protested a sarky flight line assistant asked “if I’d visited many FBO’s”. (More than you’ve had hot breakfasts, sunny boy). Eventually I took gas and they ‘waived’ the fee. How nice of them.
We always called them $ignature. They always charge absurd fees where they have a monopoly, their prices are very reasonable if there’s another FBO on the field, however. Certainly when I was living in the US, they were by far the most expensive FBO.
The problem is that for every light GA pilot who doesn’t like this sort of pricing and who actually flies to the affected airports (in Europe), there are a dozen bizjet / King Air customers who happily pay a few hundred quid so long as the client sitting in the back gets very fresh coffee and croissants, and gets the limo ordered to collect them, and they are happy to pay a couple of hundred more to have their externally serviceable loo pumped out 
That is what keeps the ripoff handling scene going everywhere where it is going. If these high-end customers vanished, or refused to pay the prices, everything would change, instantly. The handlers are highly focused on making money and they offer a generally good service for what they charge. This is how aviation has run for many decades.
Not all bizjet customers like to pay these charges but the numbers of the ones who don’t are small. The vast majority just pay whatever it costs. A 2-pilot crew costs some £1000/day plus expenses, and the plane itself costs a few k per hour to run…
This is also how handling companies establish themselves from nothing at airfields. The company approaches the airport manager and promises him the world, in the form of bizjets and turboprops spending hundreds plus. “Of course” the handler will want exclusivity on traffic, hence the “mandatory handling” scam… It takes a manager with real balls to turn this down, or limit the handler to aircraft over say 3T. We had this at Shoreham, mandatory over 1.5T or so, and by the time the then management saw the light, the larger SEP and ME traffic was wiped out for ages (slagging off spreads fast via the right forums and bad news runs for a long time). That too was done on the promise of bizjets buying a lot of fuel.
I have completely self handled at Bern, got engines started and a clearance, only for the handler to park in front of me only for the purpose of taking my money.
Sharks.
Having a big twin they gauge you already, I can’t imagine what it would be to arrive in a jet and get the jet “tax”. 
It was only an Aztec at the time, scarcely a “big twin.”
I dont know if you guys can open this Link from AOPA USA.
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2017/august/04/faa-denies-signature-flight-support-complaint-over-orange-county-lease-termination
Never knew Signiture was a British Corp company. It seems they got the European fever and wherever they are the Sole FBO they spike their prices similar to ???
Yes, Fraport. Well now the good news they just got their lease terminated for price gouging. Isnt that sweet!!!
Maybe someone from the Greek AOPA can send this article to the powers that be to see why US is still the best place for GA and they are NOT. But with a little effort and less greed could be better.
C210_Flyer wrote:
Never knew Signiture was a British Corp company. It seems they got the European fever and wherever they are the Sole FBO they spike their prices similar to ???
Signature have been doing that for years – unfortunately it’s not a recent thing! Even back in the 90s we knew better not to go to an airport where Signature was the only FBO. But they were fine where they had competition.
Andreas, I actually never had issues with Signiture either but when flying to a major airport I would always call in advance and see what they required. Never found them to be unreasonable but those were airports with other FBOs.
Well all you can say is that they are Corp pigs which is the reason we had the Soviet Union for 70 yrs. They are in the process of being looked at by the FAA in 3-4 other airports so they might be packing their bags there as well. So in order to make up the loss due to unforeseen adverse business climate in the states they will be raising their fees here in Europe to compensate. Of course the people making policy decisions are probably going to be promoted. Thats how the corp world works or they will fire a assistant building engineer (Janitor) and pin the earnings loss on him.
Oh my sarcastic are we?
Posts moved to existing “Signature ripoff” thread.
