LFAT charge close to €30 (TB20 1400kg) which sounds in line with what you say. But that only confirms what you found for LFBH i.e. no published discount for locals. Not sure how this relates to the thread topic, too.
A few, but not many airfields in France have discounted landing fees for FFA members. But that‘s not really worth talking about.
The main difference is that French pilots tend to fly to small non-ATS and and non-PoE airfields for their usual lunch runs, and most of these airfields don’t have any landing fees at all, no matter if FFA or foreign or whatever.
On the other end of the spectrum are British pilots. They mostly always go to the same watering holes, mostly because they need customs, but also because most of them want English speaking ATS. These airfields do of course have landing fees, and sometimes rather high ones.
German pilots are somewhere in the middle. Most tend to like English-speaking ATS as well, but then most don‘t need customs.
Anyway, the title is poorly chosen, because the chamber of commerce airfields are usually not the same as the regional airline type of airports, which the initial post was about. Chamber of commerce ones tend to be GA-only airfields, whereas the most noticeable downturn is seen in the regional airline type of airports, due the demise of their airline services.
the title is poorly chosen
In the absence of a suggestion for a better one, I changed it as best as I can.
Chamber of commerce ones tend to be GA-only airfields
I am sure that is not true, at least historically so.
It is difficult to say how much traffic (post Covid restrictions) have been lost at Regional Airports.
Both Dinard and Rennes have lost a lot of traffic Dinard because of the loss of RyanAir which we have discussed and possibly the loss of Aurigny due to Covid restrictions on the Channel Islands followed perhaps by the company decided that the Dinard business was not worth the outlay.
Rennes lost most of its International Business due to the demise of FlyBe (this also affected Bergerac). The new Flybe does not mention either of these fields in their new proposed routings.
Nantes is growing but can only grow so far due to limited space. The proposed larger Nantes airport scheme has been scrapped due to public pressure.
La Rochelle has seen the return of some International services has picked up a little for the summer but from October to May IIRC there is only RyanAir once a week to Stansted.
The idea of moving La Rochelle CAT to Rochefort has been shelved for the time being.
Bordeaux Mèrignac is busier now all year and even more so in summer.
Biarritz mainly July and August for CAT seems about the same as pre Covid but haven’t looked at the most recent time tables.
Limoges about the same amount of CAT traffic.
Angouleme returned to club flying when RyanAir? stopped going there.
Perpignan little change
Marseille little has changed.
Nice keeps getting busier. Or would be if EasyJet and some others were working to full capacity.
Regional airports seem to go from one extreme to the other year by year. And it has always been so.
I think all the above except perhaps Rennes have train journeys to Paris greater than 2hours.
One more might be Poitiers but whether or not you could term this a Regional Airport in the true sense of the word, I’m not sure. It has never seen significant regular CAT in my memory.
But did have a great restaurant during the week.
All the above except Marseille, Nice, Bordeaux Mérignac and Nantes are kept open due to club efforts plus some aeronautical related industry, public opinion at a local level and the efforts of the FFA.
It has only been in the last 15 to 20 years or less that the likes of Mérignac, Nice and Nantes have become less welcoming to GA traffic as we tend to know it on this forum.
Looking at the problems of Regional Airfields in France I return to LFBH La Rochelle. It seems that the current populace maire doesn’t really like all that engine noise disturbing the local population. A populist and ignorant of aviation journalist based in Paris seems to be supporting his anti aviation opinions. To that end last November (and something I missed at the time) it was declared that the military fast jets were no longer welcome at LFBH. LFBH had /has many fast jet training facilities and corridors nearby eg Cognac and Rochefort and one would often see and get up close and personal to an Alphajet or a Mirage and talk to its crew at LFBH.
IMO its a bad thing when what I believe to be a minority manage to persuade a majority that something isn’t good for them and should be curtailed.
Many users of LFBH used to enjoy seeing these military fast jets and talking to their crews. They are going to fly low overhead anyway so how much less noise will there be if they don’t land occasionally.
The FFA and the Government need to put it to the objecting populace of La Rochelle, “what would happen if these pilots were not around and the Russians were able to push through western europe. Who is going to protect their area?”
And how much further could such a Mayor and such a press push things. Perhaps to the end of all jet aircraft at La Rochelle. Its a small step. Or curtailing GA in one way or another. Oh wait, they have already done that. 48hr PN to bse even for Shengen area anyone?
gallois wrote:
And how much further could such a Mayor and such a press push things.
Same scheme as elsewhere, make the airfield monumentally unattractive and then close it because there is “no public demand”.
Indeed in LFBH, issue is that political doesn’t like planes, except where they can get a lot of money from, like easy ones in the summer and ryan ones.
My friend who’s firemen there, had a lot of holes in his schedule after covid because RFFS level is only raised when commercials are due to arrive.
for some time (during covid), it was even question of stopping it.
La Rochelle has a lot of small cities around which are directly around the airport under the pattern (Nieul, L’houmeau, Lagord, Puilboro) where all local politician have their home, and they don’t like their wife been watched when lying on a sun chair…
On the other side, there are some unusual traffic sometimes, by rich owner landing their big jet outside opening hours, because owner need to reach his house on the Ile de Re… I let you imagine if a 7X misses landing and burns on he opposite threshold…
My friend is sometimes afraid when Xavier Niel lands his A319 in late summer (9 p.m) when there are still DR400 in the pattern… It is still a great place to go thanks to the resilience of GA folks here, the aeroclub of La Rochelle being the best one.
