Shoreham landing fee

[tmmorris]

I was amazed today to find the landing fee at Shoreham is now £31.20 for a PA28. Daylight robbery, especially compared to e.g. Gloucester or Kidlington. Also, there was no discount despite our uploading 63 litres of fuel, and buying lunch for four.

I like Shoreham, and it was busy, not least the cafe. However, I won't be going back in a hurry.

£31.20 for basic VFR services to a skinny, barely maintained runway?

[wigglyamp]

With the same group who own Shoreham also owning Fairoaks, how soon will these high landing fees start to be applied to our home base?

[sharpend]

Stupid people. This is in an age when places like Kemble and Cranfield are reducing their fees to attract customers. Customers who buy fuel and spend money in the cafe.

I won't be going to Shoreham anymore!

[Bob Upanddown]

How can you make money out of an airfield without charging people to use it? That includes the people renting land/buildings for business on the airfield as much as the pilots landing there and the owners keeping their aircraft there.

If a company has just purchased an airfield, I would assume they have looked at the books. If the previous owners could not make a profit from charging users, then I assume the new owners have already identified where prices have to go up. I guess Wigglyamp has a lease with a rent fixed for a period so probably not much chance of increasing that charge during the period. Ah, but landing fees can be put up at any time, at the drop of a hat, as can parking fees....

The guys who bought the airfield want to make a profit. They won't make money out of increasing landing fees.
And we will loose another airfield to a housing estate.

[dirkdj]

Well, those guys flying private planes are all very rich you know. At least they were BEFORE they started.:E

[Blues&twos]

Not going to be making a profit from people who no longer go there, though. They'll be losing out not only on landing fees, but "peripheral" spending once the customers are on the ground. Not just small money at the cafe, but potentially new student pilots, engineering parts/services etc.

I would have thought landing fees for private aircraft would be an area where they're most likely to be able to make cuts to attract new trade.

[Blink182]

Check out the long threads about Shoreham and their landing fee policy on the F*yer forum over the last couple of months.

[Scott C]

Got £1000 worth of camera kit (Cannon dSLR + lenses, plus video camera) nicked out of the aircraft whilst I ate lunch and also nearly mowed down Sir Alan Sugar as I taxied to the runway, as he walked straight in front of the aircraft!

I won't be going there again... Not in the near future anyway!

[mrangryofwarlingham]

so whoever at shoreham wrote this could have made things clearer....

http://www.shorehamairport.co.uk/files/file/pdf/Visitors_Copy_of_Price_List_from_1st_October.pdf

If I land at 9;30, and I have filled up with at least 50 litres of full somewhere else before arrival, for example at Deauville, I get a discount on the landing fee?

I think they meant so say AFTER arrival but before departure.......

and to only limit the discount to lifting fuel if you arrive before 9:45 local time? is this because they only want to encourage traffic to arrive before then when it is quiet?

The basic premise however, is that airports should be allowed to make money like any business. How stupid would it be for them to let the airport go bust and not make sufficient money to invest into the airfield and facilities.

[Steve6443]

Scott: did you check whether Sir Alan had half inched your gear? But seriously, was your plane locked up? I'm amazed to see people leave planes unlocked and unattended - forget about the camera, but a couple of decent headsets (Lightspeed Zulus, Bose etc) would also put a serious dent in your wallet replacing.

I know, in the old days we could leave our houses unlocked but that was when nobody had anything worth stealing......

[dirkdj]

It is usually cheaper to leave the door open and have your gear stolen than to have a locked door opened with a crowbar. Only leave in the aircraft what you can afford to have stolen. A friend had his Bonanza side window smashed in Spain in order to steal the kid's gameboy left behind on the rear seat. Very expensive gameboy.

[Scott C]

Scott: did you check whether Sir Alan had half inched your gear? But seriously, was your plane locked up? I'm amazed to see people leave planes unlocked and unattended - forget about the camera, but a couple of decent headsets (Lightspeed Zulus, Bose etc) would also put a serious dent in your wallet replacing.

I know, in the old days we could leave our houses unlocked but that was when nobody had anything worth stealing......

Unfortunately, the door wasn't lockable and it was a hired a/c. It was a PA28, so I thought that rather than carrying a rather chunky camera bag round with me, i'd put it in the rear footwell out of sight... We even sat in the restaurant looking out at the a/c as it was parked only 75 - 100m away!

Shortly before this incident, a friend of mine got his Bose headset nicked from Shoreham, but I didn't find out until I was telling him about my plight.

Needless to stay, anything expensive stays with me and my Bose headset is put back in my headset case and hidden away!

[englishal]

It is the same deal with taxes. Raise tax RATES and tax REVENUES drop. I dunno why those in power can't see this...

Oh wait, yes I do (with regards to an airfield). I guess if an airfield owner can show the local council that traffic has dropped, and it is no longer viable as an airfield, then they are more likely to get change of use to a 500 house housing estate (and hence it is suddenly worth a lot more as land).......

Airfields should be protected by law, as once they are gone, they are not coming back. Look at the SW of England, airfields are disappearing at an alarming rate, Plymouth being the prime example.. The MoD are also shutting bases around the country and soon all we'll have left is Heathrow.

Perhaps the military should co-exist with GA and CAT on many airfields with the funding split. Would be cheaper for the government than running expensive military airfields which are mostly empty at weekends but more importantly the airfields would remain open and available to us and you could use service personnel for ATC services who otherwise would be drinking tea (but still being paid by HM). During the Navy holidays, places like Yeovilton are shut for weeks. What a waste....(well actually we use it, so it is not all wasted ;) )....The government could issue grants to private airfield owners to accept military traffic to make it viable to keep them open.

Many airfield in the rest of the world are like this....Bodo in Norway is a good example, F16s on one side of the runway, 737s on the other side. RNAS Shoreham or Plymouth?! :)

[mrangryofwarlingham]

Raise tax rates and revenues drop....

Up to a certain point only. There is a rate at which revenues peak.
1% of this population pay up to 30% of the total income tax take.

Do you have the figures at Shoreham to show that revenues are now lower with the current landing fees? Do you have a proposal for how much they should be instead, and how you work that out?

I am not particularly trying to defend Shoreham with its tired facilities, narrow runway and no ILS (I used to fly a PA-23 from there, and haven't for a while but that has nothing to do with landing fees), but their fees are in line with say Biggin Hill. If the landing fee really means that much to you, then don't visit the airfield. Maybe without your business they will drop the rates to have you return. I can certainly recall that if I wanted to practice circuits or approaches I went to Lydd (very cheap, but the procedure there is ridiculous) or to Calais (so you can get the excise duty drawback).

[IRpilot2006]

Shoreham is really busy. A lot of UK GA moans and whinges all the time especially on the forums but enough people seem to disagree with the above mentioned views. If Shoreham dropped its prices it would just attract more of the five quid pilots who they don't need anyway because on the nice days these people fly, airports like Shoreham are really busy already.

skinny, barely maintained runway?

The nice hard runway went in late 1970s. Might be worth paying another visit :)

Or if you can't land on a 18m wide runway, do some training with an instructor.

Use it or lose it, but if you want a burger run destination for five quid then go to some grass strip.

[rjay259]

To build houses on the site would be a very bad idea, how often does it flood, only every winter and some summers recently! To get home insurance would be a fortune.

[Jonzarno]

Shoreham is really busy. A lot of UK GA moans and whinges all the time especially on the forums but enough people seem to disagree with the above mentioned views. If Shoreham dropped its prices it would just attract more of the five quid pilots who they don't need anyway because on the nice days these people fly, airports like Shoreham are really busy already.

It's a free market and they can charge what they like as long as the traffic will bear it.

That said it's about 10 quid more than Cambridge, Biggin or Prestwick, three airports I use frequently and, AIUI, I don't think the facilities at Shoreham are really comparable to any of those. BTW, what's the fuel price like at Shoreham?

[chevvron]

wigglyamp: Fairoaks l/f went up last May and is still less than 20 quid for PA28-160/C172 size, less for C150/152 size.
Fairoaks website slowly being updated www.fairoaksairport.co.uk do NOT use the old Alan Mann website; I believe it's still running but is totally out of date..

[EARSA]

There speaks a Shoreham ATCO, EbonyGrove?

Try Shoreham on a busy saturday in the summer. Not unusual to have 20+ a/c on one frequency. TWR and APP bandboxed with a mix of VFR and IFR. Oh and no radar in sight

From here: http://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/501463-maximum-number-fq.html#post7545670

You may be biased! I for one won't be going to Shoreham again.

Oh, and I don't drive a Range Rover or a BMW...

In my experience, the ones who complain most about paying a few £ extra in landing fees are also the ones who arrive in the carpark in a big 3.4 litre BMW or Range Rover with a private plate.

From here (post 36): http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/502429-landing-fees-2.html#post7571927

Edit:

This was a response to the (deleted) post above from a poster who was justifying Shoreham's high and Kemble's low landing fees due to parked up airliners... I'm guessing he is/was a Shoreham ATCO judging by his posting history.

[tmmorris]

IRPilot2006,

Ouch. Does the IR make you better at small strips?

Ever been to Membury?

Are you an Albemarle shareholder, or something?

Fuel was £1.91, btw, not bad.

[chevvron]

Scott C: are you referring to LORD Sugar the SR22 owner? I understand he doesn't like to be called Sir Alan any more.

[Frightened nose gear]

Ive been put off by Shoreham fees not just landing but aircraft hire i live 10 miles away from the airfield.
The cost of a Shoreham landing fee is comparable to a night at a good b and b or stay at a small hotel in Yorkshire.
During the summer i went to Breighton airfield several times for a few days.Aircraft hire was £100 per hour wet with free landing at local airfields i.e Full sutton Sherburn etc and as important free touch and goes. A cessna 172 was £120 wet.
The Real Aeroplane Company are based at Breighton and they just like many local flyers are not "£5 pilots" just cos the landing fee is reasonable or free.
Obviously this arrangement does not suit all but it suits me, id rather spend my hard earned money on flying time not landing charges.

[A and C]

Has Shoreham got some form of CCTV? Places like this usually do so that some underworked numpty can check from a distance that visiting pilots are clad from head to toe in reflective dayglo clothing.

Perhaps it is time to turn the CCTV to good use to find the thieves mentioned above !

[tmmorris]

I bet it has. As I was wearing a bright pink jumper with a green reflective jacket, I was so visible it probably blew a fuse.