Avdata ----again!

[circuitsun]

tags ?

 

 

[circuitsun]

Oop's not so conversant with this forum stuff.

 

BUT, my question is, have  any certificate pilots noticed no avdata invoices issued lately ?  Eg over the last monrh or so ?

 

 

[Guest Bristell]

I have been getting regular invoices each month since RAAus gave away my details to Avdata. 

 

 

[circuitsun]

That's interesting,  I have been to a number of Avdata during my travels but have not received any invoices since april ( 1 )    Was hoping a hold may have been put on them, since lodging complaint with P.C.   Ah well, can't shoot me for being optimistic. 

 

 

[facthunter]

I'm a bit surprised that a 3rd party can bill you on behalf of a creditor without your agreement to it. The airport operator gets a considerably reduced payment and also engages this organisation  as a way of getting SOME money without them having to do anything. It's not as if you have any other option, either. When I had registered aircraft I had terrible  trouble with them proving my plane wasn't within hundreds of miles  or on one occasion out of service.  but still had problems with them accepting it..  Someone you have never engaged putting a requirement on you to disprove something they allege  and not taking your word for it isn't my idea of a proper deal. Typo's or pilot's using other's callsigns might be the issue, but I shouldn't suffer for that.  I don't deal with people who won't take my word for long. Nev

 

 

[Jaba-who]

Nope. Had the reverse. 

just got a bill for a landing at Mareeba but never landed there. 

 

 

it’s for a date I was flying out of Atherton and the two airports are in the same area so they have probably picked up my call sign when my Atherton call triggered the Mareeba radio recorder. 

 

 

I have yet to get back to them about it , but they have never been a problem about these errors in the past. I have had a few wrong bills and they have always been very good about reversing them. 

 

Can’t see  why there would be an issue with the legality of a third party sending bills. It’s done all the time in business and government. I do it myself. Actually I use two - a billing company and then a debt collector company if the bills aren’t paid to the first company. Vendor uses a billing service as an authorised representative. You’d have a hard time arguing that it wasn’t valid. 

 

 

[circuitsun]

yeah, we"ve been over all this before, I was just checking to see if they were still billing certificate flyers [RAA]

 

 

[spacesailor]

I'm still waiting for that FIRST bill.

 

10-1103

 

I wonder what airport,State, I'll be billed from ?.

 

PS

 

IF I get a bill, will I have evidence of a HummelBird flying, for the RAA grandfather clause.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[circuitsun]

You get Billed by Avdata in Canberra [ logical really,  appears to be the home of the parasites ]

 

good luck on any help with RAA recognizing anything, but what they want ! Fly by up here sometime, & I'll get photographic evidence for you to present to them !

 

 

[Guest Bristell]

I have been following this subject with interest. We were originally advised by RAaus management that the arrangement they had made only applied to airports which were members of the Australian Airports Association. The problem is I couldn’t find out which airports were members so I could try to avoid them . It all became pretty academic when  Avdata obtained my details and the bills started rolling in each month. I am not sure whether Avdata is a member of the AAA.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Since the two Michaels took over RAAUS, we've lost the printed Sport Pilot as part of our membership and gained having our details handed to Avdata.

Yep, they're working for the members ... For sure!

Oh, and I forgot, we're about to get a weight increase, that benefits ... Who?

 

 

[circuitsun]

Well at least one of the M & M's will benefit hugely,   but isn't that what WHO are working for, through OUR organization,  so I guess congratulations are in order!  

 

I so regret letting this happen RAA, and so resent the sod's that would do this for their own ends.  But regrets are no damn use at all.

 

Interestingly, I hear more pilots & a/c owners are letting their plastic expire , nowadays, & going back to the bad ol days.  Yeah, Viva a revolution !

 

 

[Jaba-who]

I have been following this subject with interest. We were originally advised by RAaus management that the arrangement they had made only applied to airports which were members of the Australian Airports Association. The problem is I couldn’t find out which airports were members so I could try to avoid them . It all became pretty academic when  Avdata obtained my details and the bills started rolling in each month. I am not sure whether Avdata is a member of the AAA.

 

I don’t know the answer to that but would assume not, since they aren’t an airport.

 

But I guess it’s irrelevant because they are merely acting as an agent of the airport.

 

When you get a bill from avdata you are in effect getting a bill from the airport.  Avdata are just supplying the infrastructure for the provision of the billing. 

There is no legal capacity to not pay them based on a belief they are an entity other than the airport. They are acting as their agent and so in law are assumed to “be the airport.”  

 

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

We shouldn't resent paying for a service we receive, but wasn't some of the large tax on AvGas once allocated to airport management? Since the Feds handed them over to local government, perhaps they should be insisting on getting a slice of our fuel taxes.

 

 

[Jaba-who]

We shouldn't resent paying for a service we receive, but wasn't some of the large tax on AvGas once allocated to airport management? Since the Feds handed them over to local government, perhaps they should be insisting on getting a slice of our fuel taxes.

 

I think that’s all gone now. 

I think we now just pay Standard GST and a small amount of extra tax per litre but the excise  that we were taxed and which was passed on to air services and airport operators was removed (maybe ) in the early 2000s or late 1990s. 

I remember when it was removed and the cost of fuel stayed the same (pretty much) and there was quite a lot of complaint because the fuel companies were supposed to pass on the drop but didn’t. 

The removal of the fuel excise came about because of the complaints about the unfairness of paying a tax but many users never used a lot of the services that the taxes were meant to fund. 

A lot of airports still charged landing fees anyway. I’m  not sure how much actually went to airports as most of it I think was for enroute services. 

 

 

in the spirit of “user pays” they removed the excise  and laid on all the extra charges ( Air services fees,  airways charges) 

 

 

[Guest Bristell]

It was one of Dick Smith’s pet projects around the time of his and Boyd Munro’s disastrous intervention in AOPA.  He called it Location Specific Pricing and the story went along the lines of “ why should a helicopter mustering operation in the Kimberley subsidise people living in the capital cities by paying the same rates for fuel?” The other ridiculous notion was that if an airport started to exploit their monopoly by overcharging we could just move somewhere else. I never did figure out where “ somewhere else “ was. Certainly you are correct in that fuel prices never dropped but the costs associated with using the privatised airports went through the roof. 

 

 

[Jim McDowall]

I think we now just pay Standard GST and a small amount of extra tax per litre

 

The CASA annual report shows that it had revenues of $122 million from the Aviation Fuel Revenues (Special Appropriation) Act 1988. The accounts a;so show that CASA has cash reserves of $69 million! Maybe they could spend some on promoting recreational aviation by paying the various ASAO's their costs of complying with Part 149.

 

 

[KRviator]

We shouldn't resent paying for a service we receive, but wasn't some of the large tax on AvGas once allocated to airport management? Since the Feds handed them over to local government, perhaps they should be insisting on getting a slice of our fuel taxes.

 

So does this logic apply elsewhere, or just aviation?

 

Central Coast Council just spent ~$1.5 million dollars rebuilding my local boat ramp, at ratepayers expense. I don't have a boat and they do not charge those that do to launch their tinny of a weekend but I've still paid a small portion of that $1.5M.

 

What I do have is an RAAus-registered RV-9A, with a 165HP engine so it's massively overpowered. Which in turn means I can fly a complete circuit, to 1000AGL and back to wheels-down, in 3 minutes 20 seconds. And which, since I am not based at Warnervale, means "paying for a service I receive" costs me $150/hr in landing fees to fly circuits at Warnervale - which is less than 5 minutes away from where I keep my -9 and the closest aerodrome at which I can safely do circuits, plus another $110 if I refuel on council land - even if I bring my own fuel! My actual use of the runway, that portion that my wheels are down, at 125m/lap for that hour of circuits amounts to around 2250m total or a $66.60/km toll if we were doing it like they do for the new toll-roads. Reckon that'd stand up anywhere else but aviation? Imagine the outcry if Council introduced a 'pay-for-service' charge at each of their boat ramps. For "maintenance of the facility" of course. Afterall, it costs money to have a tractor tow a slasher over the grass once a month. And then there's the salary for the ARO to catch the rego numbers of those pesky Gyro's and other GA'ers that have the audacity to fly to Warnervale because it's the only aerodrome within cooee for the Central Coast...

 

User-pays as a concept is fine unless there is a monopoly. As soon as you have that, or any other lack of meaningful competition, then the user-pays concept is exploited to the detriment of all users. 

 

 

[Jaba-who]

So does this logic apply elsewhere, or just aviation?

 

Central Coast Council just spent ~$1.5 million dollars rebuilding my local boat ramp, at ratepayers expense. I don't have a boat and they do not charge those that do to launch their tinny of a weekend but I've still paid a small portion of that $1.5M.

 

What I do have is an RAAus-registered RV-9A, with a 165HP engine so it's massively overpowered. Which in turn means I can fly a complete circuit, to 1000AGL and back to wheels-down, in 3 minutes 20 seconds. And which, since I am not based at Warnervale, means "paying for a service I receive" costs me $150/hr in landing fees to fly circuits at Warnervale - which is less than 5 minutes away from where I keep my -9 and the closest aerodrome at which I can safely do circuits, plus another $110 if I refuel on council land - even if I bring my own fuel! My actual use of the runway, that portion that my wheels are down, at 125m/lap for that hour of circuits amounts to around 2250m total or a $66.60/km toll if we were doing it like they do for the new toll-roads. Reckon that'd stand up anywhere else but aviation? Imagine the outcry if Council introduced a 'pay-for-service' charge at each of their boat ramps. For "maintenance of the facility" of course. Afterall, it costs money to have a tractor tow a slasher over the grass once a month. And then there's the salary for the ARO to catch the rego numbers of those pesky Gyro's and other GA'ers that have the audacity to fly to Warnervale because it's the only aerodrome within cooee for the Central Coast...

 

User-pays as a concept is fine unless there is a monopoly. As soon as you have that, or any other lack of meaningful competition, then the user-pays concept is exploited to the detriment of all users. 

 

Yep. Quite unfair. 

the whole of the tax paying/rate paying community pays for public services for pretty much everything else but for some reason aviation gets singled out. 

I suspect it’s that “if you have an aircraft you must be rich - so you can pay. “

Good  thing sidewalks and roads get used by poor people too!

 

But the flip side is that the meagre Fees we  pay, even if everyone pays,  don’t come near to covering the costs. Often the cost of collecting the fees is more than the money recouped. So I don’t know why they bother. 

Again I think it’s the tall poppy syndrome stuff. 

 

 

[facthunter]

The get even less when Avdata are involved  too but they don't have to do any work so they probably say why not? Something is better than nothing. But YOU are  paying  the proper amount the Council assess as being appropriate. so will they nearly double the charge so it's then the "proper" amount received AFTER  avdata take their (large?) % .Nev

 

 

[Jaba-who]

The get even less when Avdata are involved  too but they don't have to do any work so they probably say why not? Something is better than nothing. But YOU are  paying  the proper amount the Council assess as being appropriate. so will they nearly double the charge so it's then the "proper" amount received AFTER  avdata take their (large?) % .Nev

 

Well I haven’t really noticed it from places I went before they became avdata controlled. 

 

 

I remember that Mareeba used to be directly billed by the shire council and for my R22 it was as best I recall about $5 to do take off and landing.  Then avdata took over about the time I sold the helicopter and built the Jabiru. And the fee was still in the same ball park. 

 I just got one a few weeks back ( as previously stated in error) but its for $7. 

so not a big climb in about 15 years. 

but of course that’s just here. 

 

 

 

[turboplanner]

Yep. Quite unfair. 

the whole of the tax paying/rate paying community pays for public services for pretty much everything else but for some reason aviation gets singled out. 

I suspect it’s that “if you have an aircraft you must be rich - so you can pay. “

Good  thing sidewalks and roads get used by poor people too!

 

But the flip side is that the meagre Fees we  pay, even if everyone pays,  don’t come near to covering the costs. Often the cost of collecting the fees is more than the money recouped. So I don’t know why they bother. 

Again I think it’s the tall poppy syndrome stuff. 

 

There are fees for casual boat launching, and seasonal fees for regular boat users everywhere I launch.

 

 

[Jaba-who]

There are fees fo casual boat launching, and seasonal fees for regular boat users everywhere I launch.

 

Not where I live either.

It’s a very water orientated place here with the Great Barrier Reef  within small boat distance and and lots of rivers, inlets lakes etc.  

 

Every second person owns a tinny or a reef boat.

If the council even dared to think about charging for boat ramp usage  there would be an outcry so loud they would never get back in at the next election.  

 

 

[KRviator]

There are fees for casual boat launching, and seasonal fees for regular boat users everywhere I launch.

 

Yeah - but you're in Victoria. The state that introduced legislation to charge pilots for conducting instrument approaches to an ASA-owned Navaid...

 

 

[jetjr]

Didn't Vic just stop launching fees at public boat ramps?