Personally I think that charging for ATIS and VOLMET is criminal and is a definite risk to safety. Another tax raising/money grabbing attempt thinly disguised as 'market demands and competition'. Pathetic bean-counting ... albeit very big beans .... and we know what big beans generate .....
How many times have you tuned ahead to get ATIS and VOLMET info on a cross-country ? If that has to be charged for .. who pays ? Or will we just call-up FIR sectors and overload them with hundreds of requests for weather info. Or just get out the mobile orbit a phone mast and download the latest METARs ?
Pretty much every user group in the UK, drivers, farmers, sailors, holidaymakers gets relatively accurate realtime weather for free.
Aviation is a damn sight more critical and 'realtime' especially when you are in the air. But it is difficult to access by conventional means when in the air (TV, radio, internet, phone).
So the most safety critical user is the one that ends up paying. That seems rather ironic.
