Newcastle International Squeezes GA
The future looks bleek for GA at EGNT.
The charges are going up to a minimum of £25+VAT per movement (including touch and go s). This will cripple flight training.
For visiting aircraft there is mandatory handling by Samson on top of the landing fee.
The airport state they are losing money on GA, but it is difficult to see how.
1) There is no commercial demand for the South sites at the moment. Gill hangars have remained unoccupied since they went into liquidation, and the plans to build a Britannia engineering facility collapsed several years ago. The demolition of the Skyways hangar made room for a car park which is always empty.
2) Services such as ATC, Fire and security are required with or without GA, as are all the maintenance facilities. The only additional cost is for maintenace of the Bellman hangar, and the airport has indicated that it will not be spending any money to maintain this. (It hasn't done anything to maintain for the past decade so nothing new there! despite the fact that it is full of fee paying private aircraft!) Commercial moverments almost always take priority over GA, and circuit training is already difficult with students getting long holds and plenty of orbitting. (Despite the fact that most ATCOs try very hard to get us in and out as expeditiously as possible).
The sad fact is that like so many other medium sized airports, management at newcastle are going to squeeze GA out because of a short sighted approach to the overall benefits of GA to the community.
One excuse cited by the airport is to bring it into line with other similar sized airports. What they forget is that incomes, land prices etc are not the same in the NE, and it would be a great shame if access to recreational flying and flight training became restricted to the very wealthy.
Newcastle aero club is characterised by attracting people from all walks of life, and it would be a great shame if this were to change. The local councils still have some interest in the airport and should act to prevent "social exclusion". Were this to be almost any other minority group the politically correct would be falling over backwards with support.
Unfortunately there are very limted alternative options for private flying in the NE. Lets hope that someone with deep pockets can invest in a purpose run GA field in the N NE. Perhaps MOD would like to donate Ouston (Hopefully the nukes have all gone now).