13 February 2018
A letter sent out by the managing director of London Biggin Hill Airport, Will Curtis, to airfield tenants and aircraft operators, has triggered a debate about the airport’s attitude towards the lighter end of General Aviation (GA).
The letter announces that the previous landing fee of £23.00 for aircraft weighing up to 800kg, which covers most PPL training aircraft, is being discontinued from April 2018. Instead, the category will be 0 to 1,700kg and the fee £27.70.
The announcement comes on the back of a 23% rise in business jet traffic which has resulted in conflicts between arriving jet traffic and piston-engined trainers in the circuit.
“We must therefore limit any circuit flying and slower traffic,” says the letter.
“Whilst we remain committed to light aviation at the airport, we have stated previously that Biggin Hill is no longer suitable for high-volume low-cost light aviation, in particular ab initio training.”
5 comments
Will Curtis needs to get out and about more particularly in the USA.He needs to see how they manage very well to integrate flying training with schedule traffic as well as biz jets at Places like John Wayne ,Orange County or hundrerds more regional airports which are far busier than Biggin. Putting aside the need to train future executive Jet Pilots This Country needs an air-minded public to enable all of GA to prosper.Making it harder more expensive and therefore less accessible for the ordinary Joe in the street to become involved will be a death knell to the industry
greed is good
Sadly, ddffdf is correct.
BHAL management is only concerned with profit. It is disgraceful they hoodwinked light-aircraft users into supporting them for the extended operating hours, while knowing full well, the plan (all along) was to increase bizjet movements at the expense of other users.
Distraction techniques: The noise Action Plan – They’d already vilified LA as the main cause of noise (rubbish!) and went on about silencers and other restrictions, while, at the same time, they were working on upping bizjet operations, followed by the demise of 11/29, followed by further claims of dangerous behaviour from light aircraft, and now squeezing those who remain with price hikes and procedural obstacles. All the time, claiming to want to support light aviation (but still boasting about huge %age increase on bizjets), when the reality, as it has been for at least 2-3 years, is to dispense with LA and focus on more lucrative bizjets.
All this wanting “to be a good neighbour” then pretending to be “taking action” against “noisy light aircraft” and “errant/miscreant pilots” is simply a smoke screen, so BHAL can line its pockets while disadvantaging other people (light aircraft users, residents, instructors etc).
I doubt BHA will have much light-aircraft traffic, if any, within the next year or two.
Maybe I’ve missed something, but shouldn’t the missed approach fee be raised to deter circuit training, rather than the landing fee?
Will Curtis was of course a very well known display pilot but once you become md i suppose you have to look at the bottom line !
I am based Southend which is getting busier and i suspect we may get restrictions but at the moment we slot in very often an easy jet is number 2 to me on finals !