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Farnborough EGLF Diversion Cost

If you think 100 Euros handling charges are expensive, read on…

Today I arrived inbound to Fairoaks to find the runway blocked due to an “incident”. Waited in an orbit overhead for 15-20 minutes while Fairoaks tried to clear the runway, but was then told that the AAIB was in charge and that they would decide when the runway would open again, and I was recommended to divert. The guys at Fairoaks suggested Farnborough which is nearest, and best for me anyway in terms of ground transport, so I requested the ILS into Farnborough and Fairoaks coordinated this while I waited overhead Fairoaks. But then they called me back to say that Farnborough had told them there was “no dispensation on landing fees for the situation and the cost would be a few hundred pounds”. A request for the exact cost was met with “standby” while they spoke to Farnborough again, followed by the answer:

“475 pounds.”

At this point I left the Fairoaks overhead and headed for Blackbushe instead.

Fairoaks did a great job of dealing with the situation and going to Blackbushe instead was no big deal. But I think it would have been a bigger issue for a new PPL, or someone unfamiliar with the airspace, or in marginal weather. Farnborough is an easy route west from Fairoaks whereas Blackbushe involves some careful navigation around the Heathrow zone and a couple of danger areas. To be fair to the Farnborough controllers they did check I was “able to self navigate to Blackbushe”.

There should really be cooperation on landing fees between neighbouring airfields for the scenario where one has to send traffic to the other.

Should it not have been a case of the Strasser Scheme at work? Wikipedia does not list Farnborough as non participating.

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

Dan,

Perhaps to take an alternative line – and be assured that I don’t defend Farnborough as a matter of course.

Today was VMC (at least up here). Fairoaks was closed. I would expect to divert to Blackbushe. I don’t know if the Strasser scheme applies to Farnborough but in your case I would not expect them to honour it. There were some similar examples when Blackbushe had the closure due to the Phenom 300 crash.

Farnborough sounds like they were happy to accept you but as a commercial airport would charge for it. I am not sure there was a safety of flight issue. It sounds like it was more convenient but that of course is not their problem.

Of course I may be underestimating the situation.

EGTK Oxford

Farnborough used to be 300 quid, so 475 is quite a hike…

They are severely limited in their movements by the local council so they recover their huge fixed costs, while keeping within the numbers, by charging amounts which only the jets will pay.

It’s a ridiculous situation, with such a great airport lost to GA. The nimbys who “own” the council have managed to increase the value of their houses quite nicely. Farnborough was a major aircraft test and development place.

I would think that, given it’s location in a high GA traffic density area, Farnborough would vigorously resist being used as a diversion, for fear of creating a precedent.

Yes it’s not a great situation for novice pilots. Take for example that student who was sent to Southend on a pre-PPL solo, was asked to orbit for spacing, and killed himself. And people wonder why doing say Blackbushe to Le Touquet is like going to the N Pole… OTOH, in marginal wx, a novice isn’t going to get into Farnborough either because he won’t know how to fly an ILS.

Oddly enough there is, or was, a PA28 based at Farnborough, under some long term concession.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Jason, I agree there was no safety issue so on that basis Farnborough were not obliged in any way to offer a free/cheap diversion and it wasn’t a big deal for me.

Maybe if they had someone more flustered on the radio that didn’t know what to do next, or if the weather was marginal, they would have accommodated a diversion, I don’t know. Where do you draw the line on how serious it has to be before a diversion is allowed and who makes that decision? Does it really require a “pan”?

Blackbushe was useless for where I needed to get to and even if it had been something “reasonable” like 100-150 GBP I would have gone to Farnborough, which didn’t seem busy at the time.

What I also found strange is that Fairoaks seemed unaware of what Farnborough’s position was going to be, after suggesting Farnborough in the first place, which suggests there is no advance planning in place for this kind of thing.

If the situation was reversed, and if Farnborough’s runway was blocked and they had a turboprop unable to get in, would they expect their customer to be able to go to Fairoaks? If works both ways and better sharing of resources in these kinds of circumstances would seem sensible.

I totally agree that with a blocked runway nearby, Farnborough ought to accept the traffic without the crazy charge.

They have almost no movements. Just the odd bizjet here and there.

At the root of this is probably a worry that a certain not insignificant % of pilots abuse the Strasser scheme. A number of UK airport managers have said this, citing cases of poor or nonexistent preflight and then the pilot asking for the £10 landing fee to be waived.

I did once divert to Blackbushe and when they offered me the free landing I said I don’t need the 10 quid saving

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Not at all surprised that Strasser gets abused. Plenty of people out there who will do anything to save a bit of money without thinking of the bigger picture. And that leads to airports which quite rightly don’t want to participate.

But a closed runway is different as the pilot cannot engineer it as a pretend diversion. It requires the other airport to officially declare their runway out of service. No opportunity for abuse.

Last Edited by dnj at 24 Feb 09:43

They are severely limited in their movements by the local council so they recover their huge fixed costs, while keeping within the numbers, by charging amounts which only the jets will pay.

If that is true, then I can totally understand Farnborought’s position.

If I have x number of movements to sell, and I knew that I could sell them all (and more if I could get them) for £500, I wouldn’t want to give a single one away for free. If I thought that I was going to have to give a few days worth of movements away in a few minutes, all totally for free, when I could have sold them all for £500 each, I wouldn’t voluntarialy do so.

It’s different if you have spare capacity, or the cost forgone by giving it away for free isn’t all that much.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

They are allowed 47,000 movements per annum. Which seems like a lot but they are asking for more, which implies they are at or near that limit already. However, last year’s records only show 26,000 movements, so plenty spare for a couple of diversions.

Last Edited by dnj at 24 Feb 10:31

To me the dysfunction in all of this is the artificial cap on movements. It creates a scarcity of something that is by nature almost unlimited and thus stimulates unwanted behavior.

What is the reason behind the cap of the number of movements? Noise? By solving one problem (noise) those responsible have created a bunch of other problems but not solve the one they wanted to solve. They simply chose the wrong solution as it seems to me. A bit more consideration for the whole system might help.

Frequent travels around Europe
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