Compulsory marshaling?
I have been living in Dominica since March, my main residence as some may know is Barbados.
Flew over for the weekend last Friday - nothing unusual until I asked for my parking ("...you usually put me on 6 right..." says I) they assigned me six right and "... follow the marshaler's instructions...) not weird as they usually are directing heavy jets - but get on to six right 50 foot to the stop when, sure enough there is someone waving at me - marshaling I think OK and so follow the crossing of the battens and shut down.
I have never ever been marshaled - not too impressed, over the Tee and two and a half foot into the fuel truck 'road' - then the guy, rather embarrassed tells me "$20 - my boss says so" - I have no Barbados dollars so tell him I will sort it out the next day.
Weird compulsory marshalling - I phone around - one person says yes, they bought in in last week - I had last been there twelve days earlier.
Spent the weekend trying to find the origin of it - the cost of $20 every time I move my airplane, is more each year than the cost of my base insurance (i.e. excluding the hull), more than my annual inspection, more than my non-citizen trust. My total marshalling time - on parking and departing - was no more than a minute and I was badly parked - if you like $1,200 an hour - marginal cost to the guy doing it was nil.
I was told my passenger could have got out of the airplane, with the engine running and vaguely waved at me for free - struck me as dangerous.
Seems that the most experienced pilot here turned his Six around in its length and went through a gap between a plane, the fuel truck and the marshaling pick-up that "...was not big enough to get the plane through" - clearly it was big enough as there was no collision. Seems the airport authority chose not to even speak with the pilot but bought in the marshaling as a collective punishment for all - it does not add to safety, there has never been a taxi collision in Barbados so far as I can work out.
I have flow in and out of international airports for my entire flying career and have never come across compulsory marshalling - some places I have now heard of that have it (parts of Miami International) but have heard of nowhere that charges for it - to be clear there is no handing just the few seconds at the end of parking, on start, call tower, they ok me, I wave at the marshaller, he waves at me with the twiddle, I start and he points left or right and off I go.
Goes anyone out there have experience of PAID compulsory marshalling?
Seems the claim