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Old 2nd Jan 2010, 11:52
  #17 (permalink)  
IO540
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
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= property developer.

Personally I would be looking for a profit on my house but that's irrelevant to the future of GA airfields which if operated purely for a capital gain on the property portfolio will always end up closing.

There is more to life than making money.

I'll tell you how to make a huge pile of money.

Work all your life (pay doesn't have to be good).
Never go out.
Never have relationships.
Keep your trousers well zipped up.
Have no hobbies.
Do nothing interesting.
Stash away every penny in financial instruments.

You are guaranteed to die very rich (£ millions).

Is this what you want?

Even if we exclude property sharks from the picture, the fact is that no airfield can make a decent business return on "low net worth" GA traffic willing to pay that sort of landing fee, and do some kind of maintenance.

I suppose this means that the future of GA is like I said: the bigger airports (charging £50 a time, eventually, if we are lucky) and private co-operatives running grass strips.

Can you see another solution?

Coventry is a much bigger place, with potential for high landing fee traffic. Sandown would never attract anything paying significant fees, especially as Bembridge is right next door, with a hard runway.
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