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

boscomantico wrote:

Highland Aviation have already updated their website. So sad.

This website seems to cover only Inverness Airport.

boscomantico wrote:

HIAL airports are: Barra, Benbecula, Campbeltown, Dundee, Inverness, Islay, Kirkwall, Stornoway, Sumburgh, Tiree, Wick.

Looks like however all of them have their individual sites and all of them are outpriced now in terms of parking primarily.

https://www.hial.co.uk/hial-group/general-aviation-4/1

This also makes e.g. Wick really expensive, which will impact the north atlantic ferry business as well.

This makes all of them no longer viable for GA, quite some are in a monopoly position in as far that no other airstrips are available on the islands they serve e.t.c.

IMHO this is an abuse of monopoly.

IMHO this is an abuse of monopoly.

Like we’ve already seen on many airports. Wherever authorities are not willing to take a stand against abuse of monopoly, the operators (or handlers or whoever) just do what they want. The fairytales about free market and its ability to regulate prices are just fairytales.

Collonsay EGEY and Coll EGEL Islands have hard, though short runways and, like Oban EGEO, are Argyll Council. Ashaig, (Broadford) Skye is Highland Council operated. Plockton is operated by the helicopter company, PDG, and is available.
Solas beach on North Uist is a drier and free alternative to Barra.
The small Orkney and Shetland Island airfields are Council operated.
Glenforsa on Mull and Lambholm on Orkney are grass and private and available.
Easter, near Inverness, would be a parking alternative to Inverness.

I think for a ferry flight it is an acceptable price, or for a flight from far away. For me, for example, parking cost would be a fraction of an hourly cost (PA28/C172).
And I can’t say that bigger Scotland airports are all that GA-friendly. Some are just GA-hostile, like EGPH – 3K+ for a single movement and NO fuel?! More expensive than Gatwick.

As a keen walker, I flew to the Outer Hebrides last year to start walking the newly created Hebridean Way.
Starting at the south, I used Barra and Benbeculla. The walk took 8 days during which I paid around £120 in landing/parking fees – which I believe was very reasonable.
In the course of the trip, my companion & I, through Hotel, Resteraunt, taxis fares etc spent around £4000 which went in to the local economy.
Earlier this year, I started planning/booking similar arrangements for completing the walk on the Isles of Harris/Lewis using Stornoway as my airfield base. Again we antipate putting another £4000 into the local economy.
You will understand my reaction/consternation when I received a letter fro HIAL that my Parking at Stornoway (which would have been around £70 if done last year) is now going to be £612 – which by protestation I have managed to get them to reqoute £565. This is nearly a sixfold increase
The opening section of the 2021 ‘General Aviation Roadmap’ which includes the oft-quoted phrase:
“We want the UK to be seen as the best place in the world for aviation” goes on to say:" . . .We want GA to be a flourishing, wealth generating and job producing sector of the economy".
Is this accomplished if I, and others, decided that HIAL has priced me out of the market?
.

Peter_G wrote:

You will understand my reaction/consternation when I received a letter fro HIAL that my Parking at Stornoway (which would have been around £70 if done last year) is now going to be £612 – which by protestation I have managed to get them to reqoute £565. This is nearly a sixfold increase

Peter_G, have you tried contact local authorities, while CC HIAL on this?
You could also write an open letter. If done now, before the new tourist season, it might help you.
And yes, I’m serious on that.
If they wanted to charge the ferry pilots, then they could’ve done as £100 for the first day only.

Peter_G wrote:

“We want the UK to be seen as the best place in the world for aviation” goes on to say:" . . .We want GA to be a flourishing, wealth generating and job producing sector of the economy".
Is this accomplished if I, and others, decided that HIAL has priced me out of the market?

It is not and it should be addressed by those who formulated that goal as well as all users, actual or potential, of the said facilities.

This thing is unique in another way too: Usually, outpricing happens because airports with CAT wish to rid themselves of GA. Here, if I understand it correctly, it is a flight school and GA enterprise actually outpricing GA. This is totally crazy and should not be tolerated. What do they wish to achieve? To have those airports to themselves only?

Or, have they fallen into the so often seen trap to see their costs and divide them by the number of airplanes they had recently to find out how much they would have to rise fees to avoid a deficit? This is the worst tactics but so many fall for it, it is crazy. What will happen is that those airports completely drop off the list of GA pilots, therefore smashing their income rather than to make it higher.

I stand by what I have said earlier: Unless airports get stopped doing this kind of outpricing BY LAW, it is going to strangle GA more and more and with it make the infrastructure it uses obsolete. IMHO it is the far bigger threat to GA than any other factors.

This needs to be pitched to the right policymaking level. Absolutely no use complaining to the airports. They know exactly what they are doing and obviously don’t care.

One challenge is that climbing down from this will make somebody look silly, and that’s a really tough nut to crack.

The landing and navigation fees are acceptable given the remoteness and cost of provision but they have grouped all planes under ten tons into one parking charge. Simply introducing a reasonable parking charge for under two tons would sort the situation, it’s not fair to charge the same for a PA28 and a PC12