My info, may be out of date and I have posted it before, is that a UK Public License airport cannot discriminate but a Private License one can. So if the former gets a local who abuses say an out of hours concession, they have to withdraw it and thus screw everybody (happened at Shoreham), whereas the latter can just boot out that one operator (happened at Fairoaks, as one poster here might confirm after he filed a MOR against an avionics shop which wired his glideslope backwards and didn’t do a radio check).
I remember from many years ago a conversation with a man from the CAA because of an issue with a largish airport and the right to land. I was told quite categorically that the licence issued by the CAA to operate contained a clause requiring “equal access” to all users. Interpret that as you will and of course by now it may no longer be in force but was at the time.
Quasi Autonomous Non Governmental Organisation
Maoraigh wrote:
Inverness is PPR, strictly enforced. A pilot who radiod from some distance, asking to land (pax wanted to use toilet) was refused as he hadn’t phoned for PPR.
Should have declared an emergency. A pax with urgent toilet needs can easily be argued as such, especially for the pax.
Notwithstanding that PPR could bloody well be granted over the radio…
I’ll bite: What does “QUANGO” mean?
Inverness is PPR, strictly enforced. A pilot who radiod from some distance, asking to land (pax wanted to use toilet) was refused as he hadn’t phoned for PPR.
Owned and operated by HIAL, a QUANGO, so effectively Government owned
Gatwick EGKK is Public License, no? It is PPR (last time I checked).
UK Licensed aerodromes fall into two categories; Public and Private. Basically with a Private you need PPR whereas for a Public you could (theoretically) just pitch-up.
I had to look it up (for Norway). Seems it’s more of a semantic/translation thing and different countries have different meanings. In the regulations, the word “public” (or the correct Norwegian translation) is not used. Instead a word, “allmenn”, is used. It means somewhat the same, but is better translated to “general” followed by some noun, as in “general aviation” for instance. It has nothing to do about who owns the airport, but describes who can use it. Allmenn means something is freely open to the general public.
Anyway, a “public” airport (allmenn) is defined as an airport that is open to the public within some opening hours, where the opening hours and the operator are described in the AIP. It’s as simple as that. If the airport is not “allmenn” then it is not in the AIP. A non-allmenn airport may also be open to the public 24/7, but can in principle close at any time for no apparent reason. hence it requires some kind of one to one agreement for it’s use (which also may be just a note on a web page, or a telephone number).
All Avinor airports (state owned) are "allmenn, and open to the general public, and they are all listed in the AIP. Those who are not are subjected to the laws of the jungle.
Peter wrote:
The “public airport” is a term which IMHO comes from the USA where these airports are a specific category which gets FAA funding
No, it is certainly a defined term in at least one European country. See this post in another thread. With Germany make it two, but I would not be surprised if the term was used in most of continental Europe.
