HIAL (Scotland) airport charges going through the roof (and an improvement)

Jujupilote wrote:

Thank you Indochine for contacting them.
Their explanation seem genuine.
Yes their way to manage airports is not the cheapest, but it is not the taxpayer’s role to totally subsidy our flying.
With this new fees list, I don’t complain.

Well, if they are genuine, then they should have charged per kg MTOW. Otherwise it is all a bit of “scram!”.
For a microlight it would probably be expensive… And both DA62 and microlight pay the same fees.

I think it comes down to why you want to go there.

It it were part of a holiday and you wanted to go to Islay, stay over night, hire a car and see a few breweries, then it’s probably a price worth paying.
I work that out at
(21+10+0.6*20 + 15)+20% VAT = €69.60 for 24 hours (Assuming no passenger charge as per Indochine’s report) or about €80.

I’ve seen the island comprehensively in the past. I haven’t been back in awhile. But I did consider it recently as a potential stopping point in order to clear customs into Scotland if visiting elsewhere that no longer can accept international traffic as a result of Brexit (Eg Colonsay doesn’t have a cert of agreement and can’t accept traffic from Ireland – or indeed from Northern Ireland, a part of the UK!).

So Islay would have been a convenient stop for this purpose.
That would now cost (21+10+15)*20% = £55.20 / €65 approx. And I’d have to pay twice. Once on the way in and once on the way out of Scotland.
It doesn’t make it very attractive. Previously it was €22.30.

Ironically, it would probably be cheaper to use a big airport such as Prestwick with handling by the aeroclub!

@dublinpilot have old friends at Islay so hoping it is not made too uneconomic? Perth is still very GA friendly.

An interesting anecdote is that the rather imposing Islay House was owned by an american who was Lieutenant Idi Amin’s pilot.

boscomantico wrote:

Could it be that the navigation charge is only if using an instrument approach or so?

The official HIAL price lists have been updated: https://www.hial.co.uk/hial-group/general-aviation-4/1

Highland Aviation at Inverness hasn’t (yet) updated their website: https://highlandaviation.com/pages/handling-ppr

HIAL’s original email to me said this (not very clear):

In your correspondence, you mentioned navigation fees. As part of HIAL’s review of its conditions of use and airport charges, the presentational format of HIAL’s fees and charges was reviewed to detail individual services provided. This is commonplace across other airports in Scotland.

HIAL’s landing fee has historically combined a navigation element. From 1 April 2024 this fee has been separated to detail the landing and navigation fees.

HIAL has introduced a navigation fee for practice approach and touch and go movements.

In any case the navigation charge was charged to me for my VFR trip to Islay (but combined with the landing fee into one line item (which is somewhat ironic given the apparent rationale for updating the way the fees are listed in the fees & charges documents)).

dublinpilot wrote:

(Eg Colonsay doesn’t have a cert of agreement and can’t accept traffic from Ireland – or indeed from Northern Ireland, a part of the UK!).

Can you explain a bit more, about why you can’t fly from Northern Ireland to Colonsay? My understanding is that flights from Northern Ireland to GB do not concern themselves with Customs & Excise nor Border Force. Only notification to Police is required (assuming a non police designated aerodrome).

Pirho wrote:

Can you explain a bit more, about why you can’t fly from Northern Ireland to Colonsay? My understanding is that flights from Northern Ireland to GB do not concern themselves with Customs & Excise nor Border Force. Only notification to Police is required (assuming a non police designated aerodrome).

Apparently I was under the mistaken belief that they needed a C of A too. But Boscomantico’s quote clarifies that they don’t.

That’s good news for me, so thanks for asking the question! It seems that I can fly to an unregulated airport in Scotland, by submitting a GAR for a flight to Northern Ireland, and then from there to Scotland (and the same in reverse). Messy, but better than the alternatives.

The GARs are relatively straightforward to file nowadays. Just make sure you press Submit at the end, and get a separate email for each one you file.

If you think the GAR is complicated, try going non-schengen to EBOS…