Eurocontrol IFR charges - 2,000kg exemption disappearing?

[Hodja]

During Diamond's recent press conference at Friedrichshafen, it was suggested that the current < 2000kg exemption for Eurocontrol IFR enroute charges may disappear in the near future.

At 28:40...

FliteLevel TV

Any comments & rumours?

[Johnm]

Time to remind them all that light GA already pays a lot of money to join the known environment WHICH WE DON'T NEED but willingly co-operate with out of the kindness of our hearts so as to help out CAT

NATS has gone some way to recognising that with LARS and airspace aware and should straighten out it's European cousins

[peterh337]

I didn't watch the whole video (lack of time, especially for "Mr Diamond") but this issue was revisited fairly recently and such a proposal was dropped then, presumably on the grounds that collecting IFR route charges from the "C172 crowd" would cost more than the money collected, especially by the time the easy to arrange "training" exemptions were processed

Also there is a big safety case against such a move because the sub-2T community routinely flies "VFR", in IMC as necessary, and this is reflected in a fair # of CFITs. It would actually be a really stupid move for this reason alone, because the small planes don't have the performance to do high altitude "Eurocontrol" IFR satisfactorily so low level VFR (in IMC if convenient) is completely natural. Whereas few pilots of turboprops etc will want to do that. Already only very few light pistons fly high altitude IFR and a route charge would just kill that right off.

Currently, JAA IR training is done using real IFR flight plans but if charges were imposed on it then it would be totally trivial to switch to the system done in the USA where most of the IR is trained under VFR.

Better avionics also blur the VFR v. IFR distinction because if you have a decent terrain reference on your GPS, never mind having SV, then what is the difference?

Diamond have an incentive to suggest this might change because the D-jet comes in at >1999kg and thus has a big cost burden in Europe where the route charge would not be far short of the cost of fuel burnt...

[soaringhigh650]

to join the known environment WHICH WE DON'T NEED

Or rather YOU don't need.

In IMC I can't exactly see and avoid. That's why we have Class E here.

In busy VMC see-and-avoid is not perfect. That's why we have other classes of controlled airspace as well.

My AVGAS taxes pay for the service and works well.