FILTON CLOSING......CLOSED!
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Not a million miles from EGTF
Age: 68
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Not sure it is that simple and I don't think you can blame the GA owner/operators for this.
If a city-based airport starts hiking its charges to GA it is usually because they are deliberately trying to get rid of them. They want the high volume passenger traffic and the opportunity to fleece them at the airport shops and car parks.
As a GA owner operator what do I do, knowing that the airport operators will keep tightening the screws year on year until the last Jodel is off the airfield.
I do what most of us do, look to see what we can afford in our own budget and find somewhere suitable.
Then we find a downturn happens and passenger traffic falls. Airports like Plymouth or Filton shut as they are worth infinitely more as brownfield development sites than as an airport. GA can't bring in anything near enough to cover the costs.
It is left to a few visionary airfield operators (I have a few in mind) who keep the faith when they could easily take the money and run.
If a city-based airport starts hiking its charges to GA it is usually because they are deliberately trying to get rid of them. They want the high volume passenger traffic and the opportunity to fleece them at the airport shops and car parks.
As a GA owner operator what do I do, knowing that the airport operators will keep tightening the screws year on year until the last Jodel is off the airfield.
I do what most of us do, look to see what we can afford in our own budget and find somewhere suitable.
Then we find a downturn happens and passenger traffic falls. Airports like Plymouth or Filton shut as they are worth infinitely more as brownfield development sites than as an airport. GA can't bring in anything near enough to cover the costs.
It is left to a few visionary airfield operators (I have a few in mind) who keep the faith when they could easily take the money and run.
soaringhigh650:
I don't know where or what you are flying but that is not at all my observation. GA would love to fly to the big cities if there was infrastructure or at least conditions set on the larger airports to accomodate them or at the very least not scare them off.
The trouble is, that bean counters do not think in terms of public service and access but in terms of profit for their individual unit, the airport, and do not consider themselfs part of the larger picture, the community the airport serves. GA is individual transport, like motorcars. Yet, nobody would accept if e.g. toll motorways were restricted to lorries and busses, because one of those pais more than 20 personal vehicles. At airports, that is exactly the line of thinking, so airports rather get rid of GA planes altogether and have nothing than the sum of landing fees, restaurant revenue, e.t.c. a large mass of GA planes would generate if it was allowed to. Instead, they concentrate on their 5 Ryan Air airplanes per day and the wealthy biz jet owners.
What they forget is that the citiy they serve may be attractive to GA pilots and their passengers as well, that hotels, restaurants, pilots shops, maintenance facilities and others will also bring in some money and that a city can loose a lot of reputation if there is no GA facility around. Some of this to people who are significant to them. I know of several companies who today have moved headquarters away from cities who deny GA access to such who do, primarily companies who are active internationally and have branches in Eastern Europe or elsewhere they have to travel often but are off the airlines main routes.
They further forget that unless there are reasonably sized airports with night and IFR facilities available, it becomes more and more impossible to train the future pilots of those larger planes they crave. If I hear airports managers tell me "oh, we should export all pilot training to America or other places where there are better conditions" then they ignore the fact that by doing this we a) will loose a lot of pilots to those places, customers who will never come back if thy can help it, and b) we are just egoistically shoving a perceived problem to someone else. It is up to THEM to make the conditions better so they can get revenue from GA which in turn will have effects outside their own narrowminded views.
As long as there is a GAT for Biz Jets, it is an outrlight lie airport managers love to tell that they do not wish to keep security and parking spaces for the vermin called light GA because it is too expensive. They need the GAT and the security and other personel anyway for the biz jets they can not really send away without major protests by companies rich enough to afford one. If they move, hundreds of jobs go. But as long as a GAT has to be open anyhow, it can only win by accepting small to medium GA at good rates. GA therefore cross-sponsors the already there and used infrastructure. Likewise, GA does not generate significant more cost at airports which are open anyhow waiting for the next pax or cargo jet, it simply uses the facilities and pais for that too. Take away GA, they will not get a single more jet or income, the personel has to be there anyhow but sits ilde.
When I hear places like Munich or Berlin who deny GA access, I personally won't carry my business there, won't travel there even on airlines and totally loose interest. Now Bristol joins those ranks too and more and more will.
That may be true for small airfields where some people already bitch at a £5 landing fee and go to the farm strip with a £2.50 one instead, it is not true for city airports. Most GA pilots who have some sort of reason left to themselfs will pefer a well equipped and well positioned airport to a grass field they can use only in summer and then only on a nice day. I would stop flying if I were denied access to an asphalt runway with night light and IFR, it simply does not make sense if for at least 40% of the time you want to use your airplane the airport is either closed due to a wet runway or otherwise unavailable. I don't care for airfields which are open weekends only, have no fuel, no customs, no night lights let alone IFR e.t.c if there is a well equipped and obviously underused concrete runway a few miles down the road which has all that.
Bristol, like other cities have now made the mistake of destroying a working and existing traffic infrastructure for low motives such as generating another housing estate which could have been built elsewhere, at the same time killing off jobs at the airport and presenting it's main airport with the question of how to deal with the now homeless GA planes which used to fly into Filton. Lulsgate will now also have to accomodate the traffic for the local industry which I understand includes BAE and others, plus they will have pressure to create lower tarifs for small GA which was nicely cared for at Filton.
The ideal model for most cities where the major airport has a size where they at least imagine GA becomes a problem at is for them to keep a smaller airport for Biz Jets and smaller GA. Paris has several (even though they just killed all the airports of entry) many other cities have them, Frankfurt, Hannover (where GA is welcome on the main airport with pleasure) and others more.
Not only has the destruction of Filton destroyed an aviation world heritage site, it has deprived the city of Bristol with a working infrastructure they will be very sorry to miss pretty soon when complaints come in from Lulsgate about the additional traffic they have to handle and the pressure from AOPA and others to let small GA operate at moderate rates.
And thereafter most IFR equipped and reasonably priced airports will be gone and the IR won't actually do anything, because small GA will be forced to fly Y or Z flight plans to farm strips and not few will be killed in the process. The EASA simplified IR will be worthless if there is nowhere to go.
It's not that bloody difficult, you know! Why can airports like Zagreb, Belgrade and most in that region accept small GA with a smile and low tarifs and we north of the Alps have such tremendous problems with that? Why can the French on most places? Maybe because people there have not forgotten what they are actually there for as a service provider. Maybe because people there are not as blasé as we are for loosing a few small businesses. They still regard us as people, not as vermin. Maybe that is why some of us might consider moving some of their business where it's welcome. Light airplane industry has boomed in the former east block countries for a good reason while former great producers have closed shop in so called G 8 nations. It won't make the "big picture guys" think but it should.
It's quite simple. The GA pilot community just avoids the big cities generally and nobody kicks up a fuss about it. It's only when a few people start complaining that everyone in virtually every area of government, major airport, and commercial aviation looks at him like he is some idiot.
The trouble is, that bean counters do not think in terms of public service and access but in terms of profit for their individual unit, the airport, and do not consider themselfs part of the larger picture, the community the airport serves. GA is individual transport, like motorcars. Yet, nobody would accept if e.g. toll motorways were restricted to lorries and busses, because one of those pais more than 20 personal vehicles. At airports, that is exactly the line of thinking, so airports rather get rid of GA planes altogether and have nothing than the sum of landing fees, restaurant revenue, e.t.c. a large mass of GA planes would generate if it was allowed to. Instead, they concentrate on their 5 Ryan Air airplanes per day and the wealthy biz jet owners.
What they forget is that the citiy they serve may be attractive to GA pilots and their passengers as well, that hotels, restaurants, pilots shops, maintenance facilities and others will also bring in some money and that a city can loose a lot of reputation if there is no GA facility around. Some of this to people who are significant to them. I know of several companies who today have moved headquarters away from cities who deny GA access to such who do, primarily companies who are active internationally and have branches in Eastern Europe or elsewhere they have to travel often but are off the airlines main routes.
They further forget that unless there are reasonably sized airports with night and IFR facilities available, it becomes more and more impossible to train the future pilots of those larger planes they crave. If I hear airports managers tell me "oh, we should export all pilot training to America or other places where there are better conditions" then they ignore the fact that by doing this we a) will loose a lot of pilots to those places, customers who will never come back if thy can help it, and b) we are just egoistically shoving a perceived problem to someone else. It is up to THEM to make the conditions better so they can get revenue from GA which in turn will have effects outside their own narrowminded views.
As long as there is a GAT for Biz Jets, it is an outrlight lie airport managers love to tell that they do not wish to keep security and parking spaces for the vermin called light GA because it is too expensive. They need the GAT and the security and other personel anyway for the biz jets they can not really send away without major protests by companies rich enough to afford one. If they move, hundreds of jobs go. But as long as a GAT has to be open anyhow, it can only win by accepting small to medium GA at good rates. GA therefore cross-sponsors the already there and used infrastructure. Likewise, GA does not generate significant more cost at airports which are open anyhow waiting for the next pax or cargo jet, it simply uses the facilities and pais for that too. Take away GA, they will not get a single more jet or income, the personel has to be there anyhow but sits ilde.
When I hear places like Munich or Berlin who deny GA access, I personally won't carry my business there, won't travel there even on airlines and totally loose interest. Now Bristol joins those ranks too and more and more will.
What the pilot doesn't know is that he is effectively killing his own network of airports to fly to and from......
Bristol, like other cities have now made the mistake of destroying a working and existing traffic infrastructure for low motives such as generating another housing estate which could have been built elsewhere, at the same time killing off jobs at the airport and presenting it's main airport with the question of how to deal with the now homeless GA planes which used to fly into Filton. Lulsgate will now also have to accomodate the traffic for the local industry which I understand includes BAE and others, plus they will have pressure to create lower tarifs for small GA which was nicely cared for at Filton.
The ideal model for most cities where the major airport has a size where they at least imagine GA becomes a problem at is for them to keep a smaller airport for Biz Jets and smaller GA. Paris has several (even though they just killed all the airports of entry) many other cities have them, Frankfurt, Hannover (where GA is welcome on the main airport with pleasure) and others more.
Not only has the destruction of Filton destroyed an aviation world heritage site, it has deprived the city of Bristol with a working infrastructure they will be very sorry to miss pretty soon when complaints come in from Lulsgate about the additional traffic they have to handle and the pressure from AOPA and others to let small GA operate at moderate rates.
Watch this space in 5 years. I'd be surprised if anything changes. Until the EASA accessible IR is rolled out, GA will remain confined to the remote farm fields.
It's not that bloody difficult, you know! Why can airports like Zagreb, Belgrade and most in that region accept small GA with a smile and low tarifs and we north of the Alps have such tremendous problems with that? Why can the French on most places? Maybe because people there have not forgotten what they are actually there for as a service provider. Maybe because people there are not as blasé as we are for loosing a few small businesses. They still regard us as people, not as vermin. Maybe that is why some of us might consider moving some of their business where it's welcome. Light airplane industry has boomed in the former east block countries for a good reason while former great producers have closed shop in so called G 8 nations. It won't make the "big picture guys" think but it should.
Last edited by AN2 Driver; 4th Jan 2013 at 18:07.
