'Why not go to Lydd?'
Recently someone based at Lydd was telling me what a great place it is and how he couldn’t understand why more people didn’t go there.
Today I was planning a trip for tomorrow and the idea was RNAV approach to Shoreham for coffee, then VFR to Redhill for lunch. Shoreham's a bit expensive but I could do with the approach for currency. I rang Shoreham to check but unfortunately they don’t have an approach controller for tomorrow.
No problem, I thought, Lydd is only 20 minutes or so further away and I’ve never been. I checked the website and they wanted £19 for a 'Training approach' and £30 landing fee. Now, everywhere else I go for this sort of thing (Shoreham, Gloucester e.g.) doesn’t charge an approach fee if you go on to land - after all, you’ll probably buy food, fuel etc. Not so at Lydd: because the approach is for currency and not because it’s IMC, it counts as Training so I have to pay both fees. And that’s on top of the extra money to fly further from home. I did point out I was fully qualified (P1 with 'lookout' passenger, not an instructor) and could just have said the flight was IFR but no joy.
So, I decided to do the approach to go around and go straight to Redhill instead. If they had applied the same policy as Shoreham, Lydd would be getting £11 extra in fees and the profit on two sets of coffee and cake. Instead, they are going to make less money. I refuse to believe a PA28 would cause £11 worth of runway damage, still less £30.
Barmy. Still, it answers my question - because it’s in the middle of nowhere and hasn’t thought through its charging policy properly...