Sounds like a typical tit-for-tat starting justifying and countering the outrageously high charges for GA handling at regional airports.
My ha'penny's worth:
Personally I found Bristol's out of hours handling charge £200 extremely nauseating (we arrived at 8pm one evening last summer in a Mooney as a weather diversion). The landing fee had been waived under the Strasser scheme but the lovely people at BFC still got us with a handling fee. £200 for photocopying our passports and 7 mins on the ground - what great value! It was utterly shameful.
Handling services should never be mandatory for GA - they are a license for greedy monopoly and give carte blanche to the rip off merchants to charge whatever they feel us "wealthy" GA pilots can afford.
It is a great irony that the hugely well conceived and successful Strasser scheme is often negated by the astronomical charges for mandatory handling at many regional airports.
I
never use overpriced/mandatory handling ripoff destinations like: Bristol, Newquay, Leeds Bradford, Battersea Heliport, Luton or Doncaster-Sheffield etc... unless no other practicable solution can be found for my itinerary. They do not represent value in my opinion (unless you have a clear reason for going there and not to a cheaper alternative).
Additionally (as Riverboat says) landing there validates the finance manager's decision to overpitch the price.
The airports who insist on mandatory handling have succeeded in their aim of putting me off, fortunately there are usually alternatives - especially if you fly a helicopter!
Avoiding the tyranny of landing fees and handling charges in a helo is a great feeling. Flying a helicopter from one (free uncontrolled) private site to another puts me in mind of a phrase my old grandmother used to say "there is no price better than free". (I try not to think about the cost of AVGAS, insurance, depreciation and maintenance
)
SB