Free Landing Vouchers

[C Rule]

As It was the last day of the month and a rather fine day I decided to use up one of the vouchers which were about to expire. I went to Goodwood. On booking in I presented my free landing voucher from the magazine which was recieved with a grunt and a request to see my LAA membership Card. I was not made to feel welcome.
Anyone else had a similar experience?
I should say that on Tuesday I used a voucher at Staverton and was made to feel very welcome

[John Dean]

Colin, I am sorry to hear you had a disappointing reception at Goodwood.

As the owner of a pre 1966 aeroplane, I can have free landings throughout the year and have therefore become a fairly frequent visitor. I have always found ATC very helpful and accommodating with a cheery word from the staff on reception. No doubt like any organisation some staff are not as good at customer relations as others and it seems you may have caught someone having "a bad hair day."

[C Rule]

John
I am sure you are correct.
As always I found the FISO professional and friendly. It was just the attitude of the person in the "club" who let the rest down.
Cheers
Colin

[Jeremy Liber]

I've always had friendly service from Goodwood too, sorry to hear you didn't.

Given that they had agreed to the magazine offering free landings at their airfield, and you'd accepted that offer in good faith I'd have given the person involved a fairly short riposte; I've given up making allowances for rudeness.
Might be worth a quick e-mail to the aerodrome manager to let him know about the less than acceptable service from some of his staff. I'm sure he'd rather know so that he can address the issue.

[mikehallam]

OTOH...
It is the first time for me, using the LAA free landing chitties I've been asked to prove I was in the LAA.

Could have been that the desk staff were ordered by their manager (?) to see each pilot's LAA membership card as proof. Perhaps they found some resistance, may be worse, when no card could be produced.

mike hallam

[Flying John]

Cant remember reading on the vouchers that one has to present an LAA membership card. As only members get the magazines, that should be enough. Infact possesion of the voucher should be enough.

I too visit Goodwood often and have always found them to be very pleasant and their milkshakes are nice, aren't I shallow !

John

[Nigel Hitchman]

Yes Ive never been asked to produce my LAA membership card to use a voucher! Cant say I ever carry it around with me, so wouldn't be able to and it doesn't say anywhere on the voucher that you have to be a member to use it. Just like those pilot/flyer magazine vouchers, you don't have to prove you are a subscriber, or provide your receipt for the magazine!
I once quite a few years ago had someone at Cumbernauld tell me they weren't accepting the free landing voucher that I presented from one of the magazines. I told them hard luck, they had some kind of agreement with the magazine and it had been published, if they weren't going to honour the vouchers, that was for them to argue with the magazine and I wasn't paying. Don't know what they did about it in the end.

On the subject of the vouchers, they are great and well appreciated, but very often I don't get around to using them in the month they are available, much as Id like to, with either weather and work getting in the way, or there are fly-ins on in another part of the country, so I don't go where the free landing vouchers are. One thing that doesn't help, is the magazine is often delivered after the first weekend of the month has already happened, so loosing potential time to use the vouchers. Im not sure if there is a god solution, if the vouchers were printed a month in advance, eg the Mag I got on 4 Nov had December free landings, you would get the full month, but then maybe forget about them. Another idea would be perhaps to make them last two months! Ideally one free landing for the whole year, but I guess many airfields aren't going to be happy with that, although some do issue such vouchers, Ive had them for Staverton/Gloucester and Barton more recently.

[Brian Hope]

I'm sorry that Goodwood was a problem for Colin but it does seem to be an isolated case. I think they have improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, there was a time when they really weren't interested in encouraging visitors but they have become very user friendly these days.
Bearing in mind that Flyer, Pilot and we now regularly provide free landing vouchers some airfields must get asked to offer free landings quite often. I see it as a 50/50 thing, our members get a freebie and the airfield gets more traffic that hopefully uses its other services such as the cafe and fuel, and possibly returns at some time in the future because they enjoyed the visit. Our feedback is that voucher airfields are happy with the extra LAA traffic and the business it brings. Some have even commented on the good airmanship and what nice people LAA folk are.
We do try to get the mag out for the start of the month and generally members have it by about 3rd or 4th. Unfortunately sometimes that means a weekend has been missed, but when like November the first weekend is 1/2 you still get four more weekends to use the vouchers, plus of course the weekdays and quite a few people, including your good self Nigel, do fly during the week. I've never got the thing about getting your 'December' magazine in October as some seem to do, December's Light Aviation will be out on or very soon after December 1st, and I think it would cause more problems than solutions having other than December's landing vouchers in it. For the record it will have vouchers for Andrewsfield, Brimpton, Sherburn in Elmet and Glassonby.

[mikehallam]

BTW.
My earlier missive here was to try & exonerate the Goodwood desk staff who were I'm sure, compelled by their management to request LAA membership proof. I merely suggested that they too didn't like asking and perhaps had had some less than polite approaches ?

As for magazine timing, RansMail proudly gets published around mid month. Like Brian I can't abide those publishers who make up predated issues which already are dog eared & in the Drs. waiting room long before their nominal date !

mike hallam.

[Nigel Hitchman]

Hi Brian,
yes I think you are right, the current procedure is probably the best. Agree with you Its certainly better to get the Dec magazine in Dec! I must admit, I don't really tend to go places much if Im flying in the week, as often you go somewhere and there is no one around and all the hangars shut, my main interest in visit the airfield being to see what aeroplanes are there, of course that isn't true of all places and maint organisaitons.
Now Glassonby in Dec sounds like a challenge! Think Id more likely try Sherburn, always friendly there, or Andrewsfield which I haven't visited for years.

[Brian Hope]

You're missing out Nigel, Andrewsfield is well worth a visit. It's a quick jaunt for us from Farthing Corner and we call in for lunch when we want somewhere 'local' to go when the weather's looking a bit iffy. They have a very nice clubhouse/cafe. It's one of those tidy looking airfields too, and has a reasonable number of based aircraft. It's right on the southern edge of the Stansted zone but easy enough to spot. Last time we went we had to make a last minute dash for home, we got chatting and almost got caught in the forecast bad wx coming in from the north.