Mandatory Handling & Charges

[James Chan]

Does anyone here have expertise on how to solve the mandatory handling / handling charges situation at larger aerodromes?

I see approximately 20 aerodromes in this country where:
1) Handling is mandatory and only by an executive jet agent. 'Handling' by the local flying club is disallowed.
-and-
2) The fees levied by the agent ia almost always extremely high (£50 - £250).

So altogether we're looking at fees of £70 - £300 inc. VAT for the landing, 'handling' and overnight parking of a sub 1T aircraft.

[Harry Hopkins]

I'm afraid they're telling you they don't want your business.

Come to Gloucestershire Airport; they're very pro GA.

Harry

[Chris Martyr]

Harry is spot-on , they don't want our business. Or at least , they think that they don't .

Too many airfield management groups seem to have these rather naïve delusions of grandeur , and appear to be suffering from advanced attacks of Heathrowitis . It's a strange medical condition whereby they think that nominally sized objects are actually bigger than they are. There's another airfield not a million miles from me doing the same thing , readers may have seen a letter in a mag. a few months back from a Channel Islands based customer who dropped in and parked overnight only to be presented with a monstrous "handling charge". Needless to say, he won't be returning.

In answer to James' query . What do we do about it ? Well , us small boys don't need to do anything really, as the bigger guys just aren't going to turn up .
Heathrowitis manifests itself in several ways incidentally . Another symptom is a strange tendency to want to snatch airspace that they probably won't need .
Our brothers across the pond seem to cope with it OK though . Van Nuys has parallel runways with a constant stream of bizjets on one side and spamcans and vintage taildraggers on the other, Naples Fl. has lots of commercial traffic mixing it with flight school traffic without any problems.
But somehow , certain UK airfield operators seem to think that you can only do one, at the exclusion of the other.
"The emperors new international airport", perhaps

[James Chan]

What do we do about it ? Well , us small boys don't need to do anything really

I think not doing anything is not really a strategic solution, for three reasons:

1) The nearest affordable aerodrome may be very far away and/or has limited opening hours. For e.g. If you need to do business at Weston-super-Mare, Bristol is closest while Gloucester is over an hour's drive away. Similar situation for Edinburgh.

2) It unofficially 'allows' handlers to set those charges, sending the message that light GA doesn't really care. Then more similar aerodromes across the country and continent are likely to follow.

3) It limits the number of destinations reachable, meaning people may decide not to self-fly and resort to other modes of transport instead.