The government believes in “the polluter pays”.
The big airlines demand big chunks of controlled airspace. Why? Well in about 1975 at a CACAAC meeting (forerunner of NATMAC), I heard the CAA people remind everyone that their prime remit was the protection of the fare-paying passenger. By then, airspace had effectively gone from being free to all to being nationalised so that the Government could do what they want with it.
So if the polluter pays, who should pay for the additional personnel - air traffic controllers - to allow access by GA? Why NATS, of course. But that would increase their costs, which would either affect profits returned to shareholders, or be passed on to their customers – those they charge for CAS services, mainly the big airlines.
And who are the shareholders? According to NATS web site, that would be “the Airline Group, BAA and DfT”.
So that’s why the polluter, in this instance , does not pay.
As we have seen, when politicians make the rules, they are different for them (and by extension their pet projects) than for everybody else. NATS just gets run as the politicians wish. Fare-paying passengers wield lots of votes. GA does not. So GA can get st****d as far as the powers that be are concerned.
Chris N.