Recreational aircraft landing fees - feedback needed please.

[cscotthendry]

On 20/10/2021 at 4:50 PM, skippydiesel said:

No offence KG but does this phrase really mean - all to often it actually means paying twice or more, for the same asset/service. Not suggesting your lovely little airfield at S Grafton should not ask for landing fees, if that the only funding avenue available to you. I am just gobsmacked at the Australian publics whole sale acceptance of a mantra (user pays) which has seen the tax/rate payer plus user paying for the same asset/service, to many asset services being discontinued because they cant stand alone, as a breakeven/profit entity , when they were never designed/expected to do so. 

 

Is S Grafton being used for emergency response aircraft ? or for any other community activity? - if so it should be being financially supported (to some degree) by the rate paying community

I agree: over the past 3-4 decades we've heard this “low tax” BS from government at all levels. What it really means is that those governments are operating various services “like a business” which means “at a profit”. There is some sense to this in some areas, but it has been taken to the extreme. And the result as Skippy says is that we are paying double and paying excessively for some services because they are being run for profit (with a keen eye to being privatized and sold off to the pollies's mates to make money from).

They haven't quite got around to privatizing the police and fire brigades … yet, but private schools, hospitals, electricity, water, roads, airports, prisons, communications … the list is ever expanding. Once these services are sold, it is nearly impossible to get them back in public hands as the leeches that buy them feel entitled to the extortive profits they can wring from captive markets.

For a good look at how this privatization can be abused, you only need to look at the American *health care* system works. 
There are some things that governments shouldn't be allowed to privatize. I'm thankful that the Aus public pretty much kicked John Howard out when he went too far and we still have a semi functional health system, but it was not for lack of him trying to “Americanize” it.

[skippydiesel]

On 24/10/2021 at 4:49 PM, turboplanner said:

...after ten years you think it's not?

 

So you just accept an injustice because its been around for a while?

[Bruce Tuncks]

Its getting worse...  Imagine dialling 000 and being asked for your bankcard number before continuing...  thats where we are headed for sure.

I reckon the reason why electricity was privatised was because the government did not want the bad publicity from disconnecting people.

That, and of course the easy profits.

[Geoff_H]

The electricity grid was sold off to get money for making tollways toe sell etc.

I worked on a Victorian Power Station control system upgrade circa 2000.  At that time the SECV (Victorian state owned power authority) for a very large amount of money, in fact they overpaid by about 100%.  The Company that bought it quickly realised that they had overpaid and let the industry know.  Seeing how much money that Victoria had got ever other state in Australia tried to sell their power system, but the industry had woken to the little money that they would make and were not interested.  So to be able to sell the NSW system a Poles and wires upgrade was initiated.  A few future possible use substations were built but the Poles and Wires (all very reliable) campaign was stated, a huge increase in the cost of electricity was then applied, we all groaned but paid it.  These new rates changed the profit margin that an authority could make.  The industry flocked to buy it.  They are making a mint.  My data from 2019 was that electricity bulk average rate was $0.14c/kwh, most us pay around $0.33c/kwh.  Ok there are expenses but that is a nice profit for using computers to buy and sell electricity.  The sale of the NSW electricity commission was essentiall an ongoing pseudo tax on NSW residents courtesy of the politicians.  Similar to Tollways etc.

When I bought my Cherokee in 1983 I just paid an Air Navigation Charge (the name may have been different as my memory is not good).  For that charge I got all my government landings, documents and administration for free.  Now everything costs way more than it costs them so that they can return money to government coffers.  Airports given by the government to local governments quite often saw the real estate being sold to fill the local government coffers, more often than not wasted.

[onetrack]

Toll roads have to be the classic example of where privatisation is the worst example of Govt double-taxing motorists. W.A. is implacaby opposed to toll roads, there is not a single toll road in W.A. and there never will be, in the foreseeable future. If any future Govt tries to bring in toll roads in the West, there will be riots in the streets.

There are numerous areas where Govt should never cede control to private interests, as public benefit immediately goes out the window in favour of massive, competition-free, private profits.

It's interesting that in virtually every case of Govt asset privatisation, the purchaser always demands and gets, a long period of guarantee, that there will be no competition from any Govt activity.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I reckon the opposition party also has a lot to answer for...  They could announce that the property will be re-nationalized at some time in the future and the buyer will only get their purchase money back, with no extra.

There was a liberal premier who sold housing trust houses by the street for $3000 each. The labor party wrung their hands but didn't say that they would be bought back for $3000. The premier was John Olsen and the date was late 1970's.

There was a time when government housing changed from being provided to anybody ( mainly workers ) to being reserved for "needy people " which included addicts and parolees and hard-core dole types. ( no kidding...  you got extra points for all those things ) .The shortage of housing brought on by Olsen's actions made this happen faster, and there were suburbs where fear of neighbors was the rule.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Last I heard of John Olsen, he was given lots of lucrative posts by the then Labor government. For example, he got big money for being on the board of the Adelaide Oval. He was an honoured statesman....  Personally, I would have made him pay back a lot on money to the taxpayers of SA.

[Old Koreelah]

Back to landing fees.

Some of us just received out first invoices for landing fees.

The bill is considerably higher than we were promised by our local airport owner (the shire council).

They assured us that we would be charged a per tonne fee based on the  registered weight of our aircraft. For my little single-seater, that would mean about $4.25 per landing. That actual bill is $6.65 plus GST. 
 

Spoke to both AvData and RAA and it’s clear that bills are based on our weight category. (19-XXXX is being charged for the maximum weight of 600kg, not our actual weight.) 

 

We might have forgiven RAA for breaking their promise to not disclose aircraft owners’ data, but they could at least have also included the actual registered weight, so we pay the correct amount.

[BRL]

We are having the same conversations re landing fees at yyrm in Gippsland,

My take on this is most Ra aircraft use fuel from the servo and to my knowledge we are still paying a levy for roads and excise tax so wether l drive on the road or land on a sealed strip whats the difference ? The amount of money wasted on substandard road repair what difference does it make to the big picture to do maintenance on a runway? Double dipping is what landing fees are.!

[Bruce Tuncks]

We really need to know how much when planning...  please help start a database. Small/medium fees ( ten dollars or so ) are reasonable for me, but I have heard of $500 fees!

 

[coljones]

On 24/10/2021 at 2:35 PM, jackc said:

If Councils deleted Avdata, a lot more people would be happy to contribute landing fees knowing Councils got ALL the money.  Avdata parasites contribute NOTHING to Aviation as I have said previously.

It is probably cheaper for operators to use AvData rather than incuring the direct costs of airfield usage surveillance.  A bit like planes, renting can be much cheaper than owning.  A bigger bugbear is BP and their bloody carnets.

[Old Koreelah]

We are being charged for the maximum weight in our category, not our actual registered weight. A Cherokee and B-747 are both VH registered; does the Cherokee owner get slugged with the same landing fee as the heavy metal?

 

RAA have records of our actual registered weights, but didn’t put it in the data they shared with the Airport owners… and they don’t seem in a hurry to do anything about it.

 

Not happy.

So, I will be paying $4.27 (plus GST, total $4.70) the amount we were promised: my registered MTOW X the standard per tonne fee. 

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Well so far old K you are doing the right thing....  keep it up by telling them all loudly and clearly. At least they will have to steal your money honestly then.

[Flightrite]

Was just looking at YMMB’s website for access charges etc as I WAS considering flying into there for personal reasons, not now!

Talk about raping GA! 

[jackc]

Raping RAA at $545.00 per day?  Discrimination at its worst?  A complaint to Fair Trading  should be made……

[Geoff_H]

I don't think that they want RAA, under

[Geoff_H]

Understatement.

This is what happens when critical monopoly infrastructure is privatised.  Look at roads, electricity, airports etc. 

 

[Geoff_H]

Trick them call VH-OQD on final.  Lol

[jackc]

3 minutes ago, Geoff_H said:

Trick them call VH-OQD on final.  Lol

Stealth Recon Military ((ANY Army/Navy/Airforce Callsign you can find)  OR

call No Rego No Licence No Care, that will screw Avdata up 🙂 

[Geoff_H]

I was once told to call "aircraft on final" at non controlled airfields!  

[onetrack]

For $545 a day (and night), I can lodge in a 5-star hotel with every comfort on tap, and be waited on hand and foot, and have valet parking included in the deal.

This is price-gouging on a scale that makes military hardware supply look like excellent value for money.

[turboplanner]

18 minutes ago, onetrack said:

For $545 a day (and night), I can lodge in a 5-star hotel with every comfort on tap, and be waited on hand and foot, and have valet parking included in the deal.

This is price-gouging on a scale that makes military hardware supply look like excellent value for money.

What Moorabbin has done is disgraceful because their genuine aviator predecessors once had an incentive for people coming to Melbourne, or scraping by with minimum finances to use Moorabbin in preference to country fields for the zero landing cost, and overnight parking with security for about $20.00.

 

Now that the Industrial avalanche has been temporaroly stopped there may be more attention paid to aviation.

 

[facthunter]

Clearly that figure is so out of whack it should be challenged on a need to justify the excess figure on costs and not discriminate, which it looks like It's doing.  Nev

[Ian]

If you ever get to Christmas Island you won't get a joyflight around the island. I was wondering why until I looked into the charges.

Basically a light plane is charged the same as a 20T airplane per movement.

A 750kg single engine piston plane landing at Christmas Island would be charge a landing fee of $300.00

A 1500kg twin engine piston plane landing at Christmas Island would be charge a landing fee of $300.00

 

So a single landing and takeoff is $600.00

You'd think that the Government would be trying to encourage local business and get tourists to spend their money on this type of thing, the island is beautiful and to see if from the air would be great. 

Also a helicopter or a plane might have been beneficial when the refugee boat crashed into the island.

Apparently the fees are equivalent to the following airports, however I suspect that their grasp of maths isn't that spectacular because a 5 minute search turned up the following.

 

A 750kg single engine piston plane landing at Kalgoolie would be charge a landing fee of $0.00 

A 1500kg twin engine piston plane landing at Kalgoolie would be charge a landing fee of $19.75

 

A 750kg single engine piston plane landing at Geraldton would be charge a landing fee of $0.00 

A 1500kg twin engine piston plane landing at Geraldton would be charge a landing fee of $25.50

 

A 750kg single engine piston plane landing at Learmonth would be charge a landing fee of $7.50 

A 1500kg twin engine piston plane landing at Learmonth would be charge a landing fee of $35.47

 

A 750kg single engine piston plane landing at Port Hedland would be charge a landing fee of $17.95

A 1500kg twin engine piston plane landing at Port Hedland would be charge a landing fee of $35.89

 

 

[facthunter]

Doubt you'd ever see a single engined plane flying to Christmas Island. There's a lot of water between there and the Australian mainland.. Have a look where it is. Nev