These people are presumably recovering their costs from existing traffic and don’t want to do any more work to get more money. Given they are private companies I don’t see any way to tackle this.
I suppose their primary duty is to serve their shareholders. Not their local community. Not the users (me and you).
Most GA has no money to buy enough shares in airport infrastructure, and even if some do, the owners don’t have an obligation to offer equal treatment between the various GA users / businesses either.
Going back to the original post, to be told not to whine about it now is like telling users to completely deny there are issues. Why shouldn’t one be able to whine when there’s a £642 landing fee for a Cessna 152 or when there are inflation busting rises year on year when runway and ramp usage is nowhere near max capacity?
However IMHO any whining could be more effective at your local MPs door (see the APPG GA group) than to the various business managers, who’s hands are essentially tied by the shareholders – who may, depending on which side of the bed they wake up, deny certain users access or make life hard for them, for any reason or for no reason at all.
We are not the CAA, not the UK cultural board, and not the comittee of airport operators. We are just a few pilots, with no handle on these things, so exchanging ideas here about the perfect world do exactly nothing. Thus I WOULD say that these artificial complications ARE a fact of life of flying in the UK.
That doesn’t mean it should not be discussed openly. EuroGA has a vast and constantly growing daily readership
These are regular visitors who read on average 6 pages per visit and that is a lot of posts being read. This is from google analytics so is anonymous but the numbers are obviously relevant.
And one day things might start to improve. Sure, UK does like its H&S culture. The average GA airport spends 4 figures a year on warning signs and stickers. But “social vermin” exists everywhere and just as much in the prosperous countries (because they can afford to carry all the hangers-on, and the hangers-on position themselves in jobs where they can dictate new regs) as in the poor countries (where over-staffing is accepted in lieu of a social security system, plus some corruption…). I don’t think the UK is worse in this respect from say Germany or Switzerland; just different.
At work, an electrician has declared that this gap is not legal and he needs to install a new consumer unit for over £500
It is right to discuss this because probably every airport manager and half the CAA are reading EuroGA and maybe one day some of these will realise they are not doing things the right way.
Most GA has no money to buy enough shares in airport infrastructure, and even if some do, the owners don’t have an obligation to offer equal treatment between the various GA users / businesses either.
Sadly, most UK GA pilots would not invest £1 to secure the future of their airport.
@James_Chan, what specifically would you do to fix it. I don’t mean lobbying etc, what actual detailed measures do you (and I assume AOPA UK who you represent) want to take place?
Unfortunately the US has always had strong lobbying organisations in AOPA (which unlike the UK is truly effective) and the EAA, and the UK hasn’t. Even in the US, I doubt GA would get the deal they have now if it was being negotiated now.
any whining could be more effective at your local MPs door
Yes, I think that MPs are really worried about losing the private pilot vote. :rolleyes;
Much more so than the environmental/climate change/noise complainers.
I have to say I wouldn’t fancy the job of an airport manager for all the tea in China.
Two suggestions:
1) Use a shared streamlined payment method, such as an App, to invoice and pay for airport fees. Not sure if this is considered advertising, but I was contacted recently by a German company that claim to have widespread coverage of many German airports and are looking to expand internationally. When visiting, simply enter details into the App, it generates an invoice which you can then pay online. Reduces delays and clarifies what the fees will be. I recall being particularly frustrated at one regional airport, paying £100 for an overnight + landing + handling fee when the invoice wasn’t ready for me on my return – the handlers seemed to be sitting around most of the time waiting for that next biz jet in 2 hours time. In that case, handling consisted of opening the doors to the apron for me and (in their own time) printing out the bill/taking my money. Of course, elsewhere handling can be very good/personal service, often giving me much more than I want or require. Figuring out what the charges will be to visit any larger airport can often take a fair bit of detective work – some handling agents send you the full price list while others will work it out for you in advance on request.
2) A call for PPR can take 30 seconds, but then again sometimes it takes 15 minutes because the admin/ATC person is busy handling other calls, talking to visitors/aircraft. Sometimes it doesn’t make a difference if you go and stand at the desk because they can only deal with one person at a time. I’d like to see a common App that allows you to fill in your PPR details, rather than the ad-hoc arrangements to do this between different airfields, eg Bournemouth do have an onscreen system in the GA office, Blackbushe allow text messages to the tower, Gloucester require phone call to their office, many other airfields require phone call to ATC etc. etc. While I don’t really want to have to file a flight plan for every flight, as is required in countries such as Israel, perhaps something could be done through SkyDemon and similar apps.
Gloucester under the old regime was happy to send an invoice by email for both fuel and landing/parking (I haven’t been there since the new manager started) so you could be on your way. The lack of bullshit at Gloucester is why I always looked forward to going there.
Use a shared streamlined payment method, such as an App, to invoice and pay for airport fees
This kind of thing is perhaps ok for the locals who fly the same old burger runs and need an easy way to do PPR, but it is universally hated by everybody else. There are so many of these outfits which produce an “app” or a “website” for booking yourself into some airport. Myhandling is one (popular in France) and there are others. France seems to get a lot of them for some reason. Myppr was another and we had yet another one posted here a few days ago, scratching around for business. One new one emailed EuroGA admin the other day asking if they could advertise here…
A call for PPR can take 30 seconds, but then again sometimes it takes 15 minutes because the admin/ATC person is busy handling other calls, talking to visitors/aircraft.
That’s a big problem, as is “mandatory PPR” but the phone is almost never answered 
But the “elephant in the room” is that most PPR is completely wasted. It serves no purpose.
perhaps something could be done through SkyDemon and similar apps.
It is as above… whoever runs the scheme would need to get airports to sign up to it. Then the notifications would be sent by, ahem, email (not some secure method which guarantees delivery, with retries, etc) and that is vulnerable to spam filters. One admittedly bizzare recent example is all the free .fr domains bouncing all emails not written in French. You just never know what crappy filtering some airport’s ISP is doing, and the emails sent out by any such system will definitely look like commercial spam.
There is no easy solution other than to not require PPR.
Ibra is right: with London an hour away by train, Calais is the best London GA airport
With regard to shutting out GA in preference to corporate, I would probably do the same in their shoes. Charter is the Goldilocks: an airline is too big, can dictate terms, and could cripple you if they pull out; GA is too small with low sales and lots of work. A slightly higher landing fee to discourage the very bottom of the market is the best way of doing this.
What works in the USA and France doesn’t seem possible in the UK. The self-service method is ideal. Somewhere (maybe Villefranche Tarare or Auxerre) records the frequency during the tower’s lunch break and posted me an invoice. An extra €5/10 admin charge is probably better than spending time finding the office, waiting for a person, providing details etc etc…
I almost bought a small airfield a couple of years ago, and the two options were:
I think that MPs are really worried about losing the private pilot vote. :rolleyes;
It’s not even about that. It’s more about at least trying to get them onside to pass/approve of any GA-friendly legislation, if/when that arises. The fact that so many MPs have signed up to APPG GA and some who have gone to the USA to see how things are done out there can’t be a bad thing.
what specifically would you do to fix it. I don’t mean lobbying etc, what actual detailed measures do you want to take place?
My own initial thoughts are:
1) Similar to telecoms, power networks, medicines and ATC (NERL) across the UK, I’d like to see better legislative and economic regulation of core infrastructure within aerodromes here. The core could be defined as land comprising of the runway, ramp space, and land available for FBOs and other businesses to lease. So that users are given better protection and fairer access, and businesses and FBOs are given a fairer playing field on the free market and aren’t suddenly threatened to close due to changes of land use and other odd reasons. This will probably be complex to get “right”. Profits could be reinvested into improving/maintaining the core infrastructure, which is what Canada does today. Although I stop short of asking for re-nationalisation of all parts of the aerodrome because I’m not sure that it’ll actually fix the problem, but I could be persuaded. Unregulated private owned airports may also exist too, but for specific purposes where the airport is generally not open for the public to use. e.g. test/research ops, private gated communities, farms, etc.
2) Encouraging all members of the GA community to unite over common ground, and really get involved in local politics and what they would like to see about their infrastructure and network. Following the closure of aerodromes, unreasonable constraints at some (see my list of what we have to do to FI earlier in this thread), and refusals of hard runway development at others. Most of the issues we see today have been caused by apathy from a former generation, or that it should be dealt with/funded by someone else. Or they have accidentally placed too much whining in the wrong direction (e.g. protesting at £10 landing fees at the airport manager, or protesting about growth of controlled airspace from some ANSP) while sidestepping the fundamentals, e.g. recognising the growth of airspace is a side effect of the users of an airport, and the airport exists because of the legislative framework underpinning it (or lack of) which actually should have been made available for all to use, within reason.
3) Promote and encourage local communities to be part of the solution and see what GA brings to them in terms of personal transport and enjoyment, how it enriches their local community socially and economically, and how they can affordably take part in it, rather than seeing their local airport as a nuisance, noise/environment polluting sport, run by elites for elites belonging a club. And see how GA could look at moving into more fuel efficient, noise reducing friendly engines to alleviate local concerns, like how cars have evolved in the past decade.
and I assume AOPA UK who you represent
Actually I don’t represent AOPA UK in any way. I used to sit on a Members Working Group which is open to all members and was there in an entirely voluntary capacity. I provided assistance with various projects, but have had to take a step back in recent years due to increased family commitments.
AOPA UK at present to my knowledge doesn’t have much resource to specifically tackle issues on infrastructure but they do support APPG GA and are monitoring where aerodromes are at threat.
Suggesting solutions to problems which should not exist will go right above the heads of the people involved. PPR is unneccessary rubbish as amply demonstrated by the thousands of airports in the world which don’t need it, and millions of businesses manage to take payments of smaller amounts worhout spending more on collecting ot than they receive.
So the only two solutions are to replace the people in charge, or declare airports infrastructure which has to be accessible.
It looks like those countries that have done neither slowly go downhill for GA
