Salzburg (LOWS) imposing a 100€ Handling Fee!

Nice – it is not part of the authority approved standard charges, but a pure airport invention.
Broadly obervable pattern – inventing superfluous services, like transport for micro distances by shuttle, chocks, warning cones…etc and then claiming a need to charge for services. Disappointing.
And yes, associations like AOPA should be able to speak for as many members as possible ;-)

Another Airport gone… and this one was my primary Destination. Well. One more nail in the coffin.

I went there in 2019. It worked OK and €100 was not a big thing in the context (which no doubt the airport is banking on!!) especially if you wanted to book a hangar space to thaw the ice off before the return flight.

Sure €100 will stop casual GA traffic…

One on my fly to list …
They don’t bother with an occasional visitor but they don’t want the local VFR crowd. Looks like northern europe is imitating southern europe. Bad news.

Eventually, every half-busy airline airport invents something and joins the 100-200 Euro league. That‘s the trend we have been seeing over the last ten years. Those which remain at 50 Euros or less are becoming the exception rather than the norm.

And by the looks of it people are simply resigned and feel.this is normal. No it is not. Also I reckon it will send all the local traffic packing too. It is not “just” the 100 Euros for handling but that is in addition to the normal.charges.

And SZG does not have an alternate airport for GA nearby.

And no I was at least not casual GA but the route ZRH SZG was the main reason of me still trying to get back as I travel there regularly. To me I just lost the 2nd airport effective jan 1st 2024. GA is becoming more and more useless.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Also I reckon it will send all the local traffic packing too.

I suspect that’s the main driver behind this. The airlines prob90 complained about delays due to some spamcan landing and the airport felt that was the best way to solve the issue. It really seems that Europe is slowly but surely succumbing to a wave that started in the South – separate CAT from GA as much as possible and effectively relegate GA to ULs, LSAs (or whatever they are called in EASAland) that operate out of small strips. Sad state of affairs.

I am sure GA to LOWS was never big enough to affect airline traffic. It was never cheap enough (below €30 or so) to generate lots of traffic.

The more likely scenario is that some wide boy gets into the handling business and talks the airport management into granting him a concession to handle GA and get it off their hands. That is what happened not far from here, years ago.

172driver wrote:

The airlines prob90 complained about delays due to some spamcan landing and the airport felt that was the best way to solve the issue.

I doubt it. Rather the fact that in SZG you usually have to be driven from / to the airplane and these kind of things cost people and money, so they fell into the handling trap. Usually this was done by follow-me drivers before, who have to be there anyway, but the temptation of making a buck is too big I reckon.

SZG was an ideal GA airport (apart from it’s parking PPR in winter) as it has a huge GA apron and is an airport of entry. Imposing this tax will also mean an end to that. It is also home to some clubs and flight schools I believe, who also will be massively impacted if this tax is also imposed on them.

172driver wrote:

. It really seems that Europe is slowly but surely succumbing to a wave that started in the South – separate CAT from GA as much as possible and effectively relegate GA to ULs, LSAs (or whatever they are called in EASAland) that operate out of small strips. Sad state of affairs.

Certainly a lot of airports which have been in the position to write out bills to airliners make this miscalculation that it’s quite ok that as one airliner landing pais more than GA does in a month (as one guy once said, in other places it may be more) that they don’t need GA and hence want to get rid of it. How wrong that concept is does not have to be explained here, but we are powerless to this kind of thinking, primarily because GA in Europe has no lobby. The statement of AOPA Austria that it’s on the “to do list” when it starts in a week is ridiculous. Equally, there was no action taken by the aeroclub nor AOPA in Switzerland against the outpricing at ZRH.

The question really arises whether not to call it quits while one can still get a buck or two for certified airplanes. With the continuous decrease of use, sooner or later it won’t be that easy.