Also in most cases the airport does not have the owner's contact details.
With a G-reg they usually know about G-INFO and send the bill there. With an N-reg they tend to eventually dig out the trustee and send the bill there, and the trustee forwards it to the owner with a varyingly stroppy letter.
The whole business of airports chasing after money is fraught with problems. What doesn't help is that often the airport doesn't manage to make contact until months later, by which time the pilot has chucked the records away. I had Caglieri (Sardinia) chase me for payment of landing fees, months after the trip there, and it was only because I keep airport receipts for at least a year that I was able to prove I had paid it. LaRochelle did the same once but I had to pay it twice because I no longer had the receipts.
Even if you very carefully leave your contact details with the airport staff, they will PROB99 lose them, or not pass them to whoever is chasing after you months later.
After a flight to Tempelhof I
didn't get billed for some enroute charge which others got billed for and after that I put a lot of effort into extracting, from the German DFS, a written confirmation that nothing is owed, and I carry that in the boot.
You absolutely do not want to end up in a situation where Airport X, or Country X, thinks that you owe them money, because they might grab your plane next time you land there. So any ambiguity about this Italian business is a total no-no for travelling there. Unless you are a renter
