Peter wrote:
However I am sure a lot of this is not economic but political, with e.g. France saying to the UK “we are French, we don’t need you here”.
What the rumour mill said at the time it was a simple saving exercise which amounted to nothing. Actually, they wrongly assumed that flights from/to Switzerland did not require airport of entry anymore, as we are Shengen. Well, wrong. So some of the near border airfields got their customs clearance back or rather never lost it after protests.
Wangen Lachen, as many others, have limited customs clearance, but for flights to Schengen only. The procedure is to fill in an online form with details of all on board plus ID numbers e.t.c. and send it per mail somewhere, then you have to call the airport on the phone to make sure they got it… max 24 hrs before dep. The service costs CHF 50.- per leg.
That is why I prefer airports like ZRH, where you have customs as a normal part of service. No pre-notice needed and also non-schengen destinations are possible.
Peter wrote:
They never were anyway. It was done with a travelling squad
Yea, sure, but still at least you had the facilities. Were Schengen to be suspended, all the small airports which lost their customs clearance would no longer work for what was before intra Schengen/EU flights which did not need anything anymore.
Peter wrote:
However I am sure a lot of this is not economic but political
I don’t see any reason to interpret it this way unless some French official has actually said something that may have given grounds for it. Pragmatically I think it is just cost cutting.
Peter wrote:
However I am sure a lot of this is not economic but political, with e.g. France saying to the UK “we are French, we don’t need you here”.
I think you are overstating the importance of UK PPLs here. Schengen did away with the need for customs/immigration controls, so why keep maintaining an obsolete system? The only surprising thing is that the French, of all people, actually managed to cut some bureaucracy – no mean feat in that country!
What’s going to be interesting to see is what happens when Schengen collapses, as it sadly will.
as it sadly will.
No, it will not. The politicans will be very careful to ruin Schengen, because it is of big importance for Europe’s economy.
Alexis, I admire your wishful thinking…..
172driver wrote:
The only surprising thing is that the French, of all people, actually managed to cut some bureaucracy – no mean feat in that country!
Even better: We have just as much bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats have less to do and can go home early! 
Aviathor wrote:
Even better: We have just as much bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats have less to do and can go home early!
Well, I guess it’s good for the restaurant business – lunch hours extended…..
While researching for another post, I came across these interesting figures about the number of licenses supervised by the LBA, the Bezirksgerierungen and the DAeC/DULV:
| Licenses \ Year | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATPL, CPL, PPL/IR | 17531 | 17942 | 19080 | 20297 | 20357 | 20565 | 20524 |
| PPL, LAPL, SPL | 63815 | 64612 | 66499 | 67907 | 67534 | 67773 | 68429 |
| Microlight aircraft | 16068 | 16307 | 17281 | 17746 | 17320 | 17275 |
Sources: here
[ local copy ]
and here
[ local copy ]
It ist just a fresh trend, but it indicates what aero clubs and flight schools have been noticing for some time now: The national microlight license loses attraction in favour of the LAPL and LSA/VLA aircraft. In many aero clubs the Aquillas and SR20s are the most flown aircraft and quite a few clubs sold their microlights due to lack of acceptance. Out Aero Club did notice this, too. Our microlight has flown only a bit more than a third of the least used “legacy” Cessna, even with a significant cheaper charter price, microlight flight hours have dropped to a mere quarter of the 2013-value. In contrast to that, our fleet of “legacy” Cessnas could increase hours flown in 2015 to 150% of the 2014-value. We have a constant flow of new students, even without any bigger advertising, so there is an inherent interest in aviation. None of the students came to learn to fly microlights, though. Most opt for the full PPL(A), especially those who like to travel by plane. We would need to increase flight instructor and flight school plane capacity to even think about advertising for our flight school, while the club is trying to add to the fleet with attractive touring machines (with CS/RG) that will not be part of our flight school. The Aero Club has three new aircraft owners this year and in total four new private aircraft are on the site, no microlight, however. The new owners chose a DR400 and a PA28 to best fit their needs and their pockets, as well as a new glider and a “second aircraft” oldtimer.
Aviation is not declining, at least not in my part of the world. Many of the new pilots enjoy the gratification of having achieved what money can’t buy, and what requires work and dedication: Learn to fly an aircraft.
UK CAA statistics are here
The site fails to add the .pdf suffix so the links work directly only in a stock Chrome installation 
A UK training industry mag (FTN) collates them and this is the last lot:
What is the difference between the top left table and the top right table, I have no idea!
They also have these figures for Europe – no idea of the source
mh wrote:
The national microlight license loses attraction in favour of the LAPL and LSA/VLA aircraft
I think this varies with geography. More aviation of any kind will generate more interest in aviation of all kind. In the larger citie,s or rather areas with concentrated population, PPL is by far what people would like to go for. In less denser places, microlight is what goes. There probably are many reason for this; availability of maintenance shops, higher average income concentrated in a small area are probably two main reasons. Also, people in the countryside tends to be much more self reliant, and wants to be more self reliant than the average city dude. Another thing is that people who fly microlight tends to have a much higher ownership ratio than people who fly PPL, and also fly much more per year on average. In my club we have about 200 members with PPL, but only about 50 of those actually fly on a regular basis. PPL vs microlight is probably about 10:1, and a large percentage of the microlight flyers also have PPL. I can go to my other club in the countryside where we fly gliders, and the ratio is the exact opposite in favor of microlight.
In any case, the increase for PPL in your data is 5.9% from 2010-2015, while it is 7.5% for microlight. In Norway on average, we see a steady decrease in PPL, and increase in microlight. I can’t think of any other reason for this than the EASA regulation regarding maintenance. I read in another thread someone toasted the TP engine at Helgoland? The cost of fixing it there vs fixing it at the maintenance shop was 10 times more. This is EASA in a nut shell. OK (or survivable to some degree) in the densest populated areas of Europe, not OK elsewhere.
