Originally Posted by
stocker
If you had your own Runway or Strip that required maintenance, manning, licencing etc then how much would you charge?
I really don't know how much would be fare but I`d be looking at covering costs and then some.....
Most of the costs of running an airport are fixed vs. the service you have chosen to provide and don't depend on usage (within quite a large band). In addition, most UK airports operate way below capacity and hence every incremental customer is nearly pure contribution. Furthermore, they are a bit like shopping malls in that the airport generates a reason for business to exist and those businesses will pay rent (which should be higher if the airport attracts customers.) This side of the business doesn't seem very well exploited in the UK vs. other countries.
The financial logic of kicking GA out of a number of airports seems surprising. I pay knocking on £200/month to park on some plastic reinforced grass, I then pay landing fees (0 marginal cost), support the local maintenance operation (contributing to their ability to pay rent), etc. Why this isn't viewed as good incremental business by the intergalactic spaceports is beyond me.
On the otherhand, the local planners have capped EGLF at something like 25k movements a year. They can sell all 25k movements to heavy business jets so every PA-28 that they let in looses them the ability to handle a G4 - so the poor PA-28 guy is going to pay a fortune (actually is not allowed in). This is a little naive on the planners part as capping the number of flights without specifying the type of aircraft is going to encourage the airport to attract the largest (i.e. biggest environmental impact) aircraft possible. A more sensible policy for the planners might have been to say EGLF can have 15k movements up to 50 tonnes, 15k up to 4 tonnes and 30k less then 2 tonnes. That would have allowed all of the business jet benefit, and a lot of incremental profit (and the income tax, VAT and rates associated with it) on the small end off a fixed cost base (that exists for the big biz jet traffic), while only marginally increasing the envrionmental footprint.