Blackpool - the beginning of the end for GA?
 

Blackpool have announced that as from the 1st of April discounted landing cards will not be available for based aircraft. Landing fees are to be set at £7.60 per half tonne plus VAT - that's £26.79 for a Cessna 172 - approximately double what we were paying last year . Visiting aircraft pay for parking after the first two hours as well.
Due to the protests received the matter will apparently be raised at a board meeting tomorrow.
If you use/have used/might have used Blackpool and wish to add your voice to the protests of private owners/based operators please send your comments to [email protected] FAO The Finance Manager, Glynn Wright ASAP
Many Thanks
Malcolm Baldwin

Has a reason been indicated? Or do we assume the obvious?

What services does Blackpool give you for that £26?

For example, do you get a separate GA entry/exit route so you avoid the holiday passengers?

Bandit650:
The only reason they have given is that they want to encourage GA (honestly). The rate per tonne is actually slightly less than last year. No based aircraft paid that as they bought landings in bulk (although no refunds if you didn't use them)
IO540
We have a seperate entrance to airside through our hangar (for which we pay, a lot ). Visitors, and I presume anyone without arrangements through a FBO or Flying school will have to go through normal security (in fact I believe visitors now have to do this to pay their landing fee in the terminal, even if just refueling)

Baldwinm,

Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying that landing fees for visitors are actually being reduced?

dp

Dp,
on the face of it landing fees are reduced by about 10% for visitors, offset slightly by increased parking charges. It's private based aircraft and the flying schools that are getting hammered.
Perhaps when they mean they want to encourage GA - they mean everywhere except at Blackpool?
baldwinm

It's been a few months since I left Blackpool, so I may be way out of date.

When I left last summer, there were lots of rumours about the terminal building being extended to the east. This would involve displacing some, if not all, of the flying schools, whose hangars are to the east of the terminal building.

Relationships between the airport and the flying schools had been less-than-perfect for quite a while. Turning the flying schools' car-parks into public long-term parking went down particularly badly. My school was forced to pay a large sum for staff passes to enable all its staff to use the car park free of charge. The airport wanted to charge all our members a similar fee. We queried this, and also queried whether our trial lessons would have to pay for parking (the airport was genuinely shocked to hear that we had over 1000 trial lessons a year), and the airport eventually decided to allow us to stamp our customers' parking passes to enable them to use the car park free of charge. Nevertheless, there was a marked decrease in walk-in enquiries about trial lessons after the car park changes were made, with potential customers driving up to the parking barrier then turning away, not realising that we'd be able to stamp their ticket if they made a genuine enquiry.

Then there was the ongoing issue over the hangar doors - the doors at the rear of the hangar which open onto the apron. For many many months, we complained that the doors were difficult to open and close. The airport (who own the hangar, and are responsible for the doors) refused to spend any money fixing them. We always believed that this was because the airport were planning on knocking down our hangar one day. Eventually, the school decided to ban staff from attempting to move the doors by hand, because of health+safety fears over damaged backs. We started to use the hydraulic aircraft tug to move the doors, but stopped when we realised this was damaging the lifting gear of the tug, and might result in puncturing a tyre of an aircraft. So the only option was to leave the hangar doors permanently open. We called airport security each night to inform them that the doors had been left open - and it was only a few months after we started doing this that the airport finally relented and fixed the doors.


So - I wonder if this latest news is just another way of putting pressure on the schools to vacate and make room for a future terminal expansion? It doesn't sound like they're trying to kick out all GA if they have lowered landing fees, it would only be based aircraft that are affected. And why would they do that, except to claim the ground used by the hangars for their own use?

Perhaps someone who is still based there can shed some light on my theory, and whether my facts are out of date, as I left Blackpool last summer.....

FFF
-------------

When you're flying a GA aeroplane your're best off avoiding any airport which describes itself as an 'International Airport'. However, it's always a shame when an airfield goes down this road.

You don't have much choice when you leave and base your plane in north Lancashire as there are no other airfields round here.

If there was a choice there would be competition but there isn't.

Hangars
 

As FlyingForFun of Bournemouth has said (Hi Dean), the hangars at Blackpool are a disgrace. Being made mostly of asbestos, there were numerous panels blown out and left smashed on the apron during the January storms. Nobody from the airport seemed bothered! There are a number of panels missing in the roof with many owners pride & joy (including a very nice KingAir C90) getting covered in rain and asbestos debris - these are owners that have paid to have their planes hangared so they are under cover and away from the elements. Now there are buckets all over the hangar floor collecting rain water.

Contact At Blackpool Airport
 

Malcolm,
I have just spoken to the Finance Manager, who advises me that there is no Finance Director at Blackpool Airport. However, he would be very happy to receive all correspondence on the matter; his name is Glyn Wright. :eek:
Don't try phoning the Airport - You will take 4 minutes getting to:
"Dial - 9 for an operator." :{ :ugh:

Interesting to note that on another thread Barton is to be renamed
Manchester City Airport , hope they dont go the same way as Blackpool.

The problem with Blackpool is that they can't actually afford to lose all the GA traffic , as it is part of the old bread and butter income. They can't screw the LOCO's for more revenue in case they pull out. I doubt they actually make much money from the LOCO's , its the damn car park that makes the money.

The whole airport building infrastructure is old and in need of renovation. Any tenants like to comment if their respective rents on the hangars have changed to date ??

Have the operating hours changed at all to accomodate the scheduled Boeings or do they all get in out after 0700 and in before 21.00 ...... would they charge a based tenant an out of hours fee even if a 737 was due in after 21.00 , can anybody elaborate if they would or would not ?

It's all good PR !!! := :=

nowacessnapilot said :
Thanks I've amended the original post. His direct e-mail is his [email protected]

B777 airport renewal program
 

I may be able to help.

If we arrived at the Blackpool International Airport in a B777 then we'd trash the runway (due to low load-bearing strength) and then we could blow the old buildings and hangars away with whilst taxying around.:ok:

False Capture ......yes your nice 777 could certainly do that , mind you We supposedly have 737's here sinking in tarmac ( tarmac now replaced !), and almost blowing Terminal windows in before the £££££ push backs started ...........thats what a local source told me last year !

If you can just make a low pass to blow the old hangars down that might start some upgrading !!!!



:ooh:

I thought based operators had been offered a 50% reduction on their landind fees ?

Red Devil 666 said

FBOs have i.e. Flying Schools and other commercial operators, not individual or group owners

According to the "Fees & Charges" Sheet from 1 April 2007:
Rebates are available for:
Crew Training & test Flights Pre-Booked with ATC only, of 50%
Diverted Scheduled Services of 50%
and For Additional Approaches of 50%

No mention of "Home Based Operators" though, so they would have to pay full whack. That can't be right, Can it??????

This appears to be the same as the discounts offered last year except that discount pre-paid landing cards were then available.

A 50% discount has been offered to FBOs - the uncertainity is over whether this is available to all based aircraft and if not what discounts, if any, are available to others.

Anyone who has an aircraft based at the Airport will receive a 50% discount on their landing fees.