Ridiculous prices
Howdy all.
We all know that the cost of corporate aviation extends well beyond the purchase of the aircraft. It seems the costs associated with operating a jet are charged at sky high rates because they seem to figure that if you can afford a private jet then you don't care about the costs.
I'm curious to hear of any charges you think were above and beyond the call of sanity and reasonableness.
For example
1. On departing the Maldives one morning we discovered we had emptied the box of tissues in the toilet. We asked the handling agent to grab a box for us. Off he went, came back ten minutes later. Cost for tissue box - $80 US. "$80 US??? You are joking!" I said tersely. His response? "Well, I had to go and get them from the office."
2. At a port in England, while tidying up the aircraft post flight, our garbage bag of rubbish was sitting on the steps. The friendly ground handler said "is that your rubbish lads? Give it here, I'll get rid of it for you." He walked some 20 metres and tossed it in a bin. Silly me thought it was just his way of helping out. No! On the bill - rubbish bag removal, $16 US.
3. Another Indian Ocean destination wanted $250 per passenger on both arrival and departure to go into their FBO. So $500 US each. All the other charges were still there - the handling fee, the toilet service fee, water, marshalling etc etc. But, with 5 pax, $2500 US just to go through their FBO office. I used the local airline instead who just bussed the pax to the terminal. Total cost, $700 US, including pax handling, toilet, water et al. To be honest, they weren't very good, but it was a saving of over $3000 US, so I deemed it a success.
Rod