Intending to price out the smaller carriers?
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Heard a rumour that Gatwick are trying to change the way they charge airlines to use the airport, putting all fees together, and including it in the landing fee, also heard that "Noise" of a/c will be taken into account. As a result, it will cost the same to land a Dash 8 as it will to land a 747. They want to get rid of the 50 and 70 seaters in favour of bigger aircraft per landing slot. Hope this is wrong, sounds like Heathrow all over again
Needs clarification then.
Noise is already taken into account when calculating the charges, ( e,g, Chapter 2, Chapter3 and Chapter 3 minus ).
Also it already does cost the same to
land all aircraft at certain times of the day, usually the peak periods.
I think you may alluding to "cost the same to turn around" rather than land.
In order for this to happen the landing, parking and passenger charges would all have to be rolled into one fee, something I doubt the airlines would be enthusiastic about.
The current structure is meant to have some kind of economic relevance, ( especially with regard to parking charges where length of stay and stand used are critical components ) and it also allows the operator to make some gestures toward behavioural requirements, e.g. pricing the landing fee very high in the peak period to discourage small aircraft. This didn't stop a "very big airline" operating a very small aircraft at a peak time in the morning to protect it's slot "rights" some years ago ( although these rules may have changed now ).
The new operators should also realise the feeder impact some of these smaller aircraft have.
Suspect this idea is from someone relatively new to the operation and certainly not with any experience of aviation. Probably an accountant or economist with an MBA and degree though
