All three Las Vegas airports will charge a $3,000 landing fee during F1 races

4CornerFlyer said:
The three airports HND, LAS and VGT are all owned and operated by Clark County, Nevada.
My note to the county airport manager has gone unanswered for a few weeks now. I told him I believe this pricing violated federal grant assurances that the airport needs to be open to the public without discrimination.
Also asked AOPA why they aren't making a lot of noise about this...haven't heard back from them either.
The video does no contain at least one obvious error. Any quotes from Atlantic and Signature for ramp fees would be in addition to the $3000 county fee. So the "bargain" $1500 facility fee he cited at Atlantic LAS (plus parking, plus handling if not fueled) is not a bargain. FBOs at HND and VGT are county-run rather than private. As far as I can tell Boulder City NV BVU is not extorting pilots for those times, so for the cost of a Lyft or Uber you can still go there. I may use BVU exclusively in the future just on principle.
Jon
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A equal fee to all aircraft isn’t discrimination. Giving some aircraft discounts would be.
 
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Desmo said:
I’ve been an F1 fan for decades. Been to maybe six races at COTA. The Drive to Survive show on Netflix, combined with social media, has really turned F1 into a s__tshow. I miss the days where the conversation in the paddock was about the powertrains versus which driver was dating which other driver’s ex-girlfriend.
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It appears everything social media touches it ruins. Look over on relocation forums and reddit wrt Intermountain West. It's pretty much a meme now that people have rekt those states cost of living, citing their insight gained from "watching Yellowstone" as their informing mechanism. Same situation when the docudrama Chernobyl came out, and the tourism lookie loos started acting a fool up there in the exclusion zone (well pre-dating the Russian invasion).

That's why I've always chuckled at the gargantuan self-own that is cheering your immediate surroundings being touted on any national "best place to..." list.
 
4CornerFlyer said:
If the airports did not take US taxpayer funding, you might have an argument for this type of pricing.
But they do take taxpayer funding, and that comes with a responsibility to be open a non-discriminatory to all users.
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Jon,

How do you solve the problem of demand so far exceeding available ramp space? Public funding or not, there isn’t enough space to park all the planes who want to fly in for this event.

I applaud AOPA’s efforts for making ramp access affordable, but that only works when there’s enough space for everyone. During times of peak demand, what mechanism do you propose to decide who gets to park and who is turned away?

- Martin
 
A lottery could be one idea :idea:. People don't blink an eye for it when it comes to "magnet" school educational access for the poor (by implication undeserving), ought to be good enough for the tax write-off crowd.

/hottake
 
dans2992 said:
I was just in HND for NBAA. Flew in.

There was a sign at the desk that said “if you don’t have PPR/reservation, there was a $3k landing fee.”

But, getting a reservation/PPR number was a simple email….. seems like an unnecessary hurdle.
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I also flew into NBAA at HND. I didn't decide to fly until a couple weeks before and ended up on the wait list but with a spot at VGT, was glad when HND called the day we left and said they had room for us. I was NOT happy when we got lasered on short final that night. Worst laser incident I've had, guy was going between my airplane and another on the parallel basically lighting us up.

Anyway, event fees suck, they really do. It's an unfortunate part of flying now... big events bring tons of airplanes which require more staff (the big FBOs bring folks from other locations in on event weeks) or overtime for current staff. It also helps with parking and traffic congestion, ramp space is finite and putting a barrier to entry on it helps with that bottleneck. $3k is a silly amount of money, but if people will pay it then.... we're the problem. Until events like F1, the Superbowl, the world series, taylor swift concerts etc stop bringing in massive crowds, event fees will exist.
 
Z06_Mir said:
I also flew into NBAA at HND. I didn't decide to fly until a couple weeks before and ended up on the wait list but with a spot at VGT, was glad when HND called the day we left and said they had room for us. I was NOT happy when we got lasered on short final that night. Worst laser incident I've had, guy was going between my airplane and another on the parallel basically lighting us up.

Anyway, event fees suck, they really do. It's an unfortunate part of flying now... big events bring tons of airplanes which require more staff (the big FBOs bring folks from other locations in on event weeks) or overtime for current staff. It also helps with parking and traffic congestion, ramp space is finite and putting a barrier to entry on it helps with that bottleneck. $3k is a silly amount of money, but if people will pay it then.... we're the problem. Until events like F1, the Superbowl, the world series, taylor swift concerts etc stop bringing in massive crowds, event fees will exist.
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There were tons of empty spots when I arrived at HND Tuesday morning and left Wednesday afternoon. If they were “full”, they must have been ghost planes.
 
Z06_Mir said:
I also flew into NBAA at HND. I didn't decide to fly until a couple weeks before and ended up on the wait list but with a spot at VGT, was glad when HND called the day we left and said they had room for us. I was NOT happy when we got lasered on short final that night. Worst laser incident I've had, guy was going between my airplane and another on the parallel basically lighting us up.

Anyway, event fees suck, they really do. It's an unfortunate part of flying now... big events bring tons of airplanes which require more staff (the big FBOs bring folks from other locations in on event weeks) or overtime for current staff. It also helps with parking and traffic congestion, ramp space is finite and putting a barrier to entry on it helps with that bottleneck. $3k is a silly amount of money, but if people will pay it then.... we're the problem. Until events like F1, the Superbowl, the world series, taylor swift concerts etc stop bringing in massive crowds, event fees will exist.
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Could it be argued that the fee should be proportional to the square footage occupied by the aircraft?

Fees also suck when you want to fly into visit grandma and you don’t realize until the last minute that’s the weekend Taylor Swift decided to enter a cage fight with Mike Tyson at centerfield of a NASCAR race on the same day… ;)
 
I only charge $1.00 to land on my ''runway''.

It is 80 feet long... power lines at both ends, and a garage at one end....but anyone is welcome.

Also, at your own risk...
 
hindsight2020 said:
A lottery could be one idea :idea:. People don't blink an eye for it when it comes to "magnet" school educational access for the poor (by implication undeserving), ought to be good enough for the tax write-off crowd.

/hottake
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Sure, price to enter to lottery, $3000.
 
And the ramps will be full.
 
This was posted at HND when I was there a few weeks ago
IMG_9127.jpeg
 
Charge what the customer will pay - if the market is open.

But this isn't a free market corporation - it is a monopoly, a government enterprise that should exist to provide infrastructure to the public.

This would be as if a toll road suddenly started charging $100 per toll booth. Why? Because they can, there is no alternative, and the owner (government) will make money with a lot less pesky customers.
 
Martin Pauly said:
Jon,

How do you solve the problem of demand so far exceeding available ramp space? Public funding or not, there isn’t enough space to park all the planes who want to fly in for this event.

I applaud AOPA’s efforts for making ramp access affordable, but that only works when there’s enough space for everyone. During times of peak demand, what mechanism do you propose to decide who gets to park and who is turned away?

- Martin
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Same way as permits for special places within National Parks and Monuments are handled: by lottery. That allows anyone to obtain a permit, not just the top 0.1% wealthy.
 
MountainDude said:
This should really be illegal. AOPA should be objecting and rallying the pilots to raise hell. It prevents common people from having access to the public airports. I am becoming a fan of @FlyingMonkey
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RANT ON :

I am one of the people that used to travel around the country to work these type of events, especially Super Bowls. I don’t come cheap….

The last Super Bowl I worked was a 120 hr winter nightmare.

These Irregular events take a huge amount of pre-planning months in advance and people with the skills and experience to keep it flowing while making it all work. It is a hell of a lot more than having high school kids work overtime on the weekend.
Try scheduling fueling, a parking plan, while working air starts and deicing for 75 jets so that they can all make their scheduled departure reservations from Joe’s Airport. Especially when they perhaps have only one working 3,000 gallon truck. It’s a lot of “Fun” sometimes.

You are trying to bring the Big Airport Logistics Dance for 150 jets to an airport that normally may see 5-10 big jets a day. And that number does not include the drop and go’s…

Some of these jets are over $50 million dollars each. Each one requires planning, parking, towing, 24 hr security, fueling, possible maintenance, and catering to the “Special needs” of the self-entitled passengers. (Sometimes the crews will act just as entitled.)

More importantly, as the OP found, there is no shortage of people willing to pay that $3,000 fee.
just because he doesn’t want to does not mean that someone else won’t.

if you don’t want to pay the fees, there is always Jane or Pahrump. Of course, the services might be slim, but it will be cheaper.

RANT OFF
 
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Desmo said:
I’ve been an F1 fan for decades. Been to maybe six races at COTA. The Drive to Survive show on Netflix, combined with social media, has really turned F1 into a s__tshow. I miss the days where the conversation in the paddock was about the powertrains versus which driver was dating which other driver’s ex-girlfriend.
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Sorry, but it has been like that for a LONG time. I remember reading about the championship banquet during the off season. This was when about the only F1 race on TV was Monaco.

The article mentioned that a certain driver showed up with his wife on one arm and his girlfriend on the other. In matching outfits. Both visibly pregnant. :D
 
I have a GA tiedown on the south ramp at HND that will be open until December.........
 
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Racerx said:
Saw this somewhere...

V12- a miracle sound that echos to infinity
V10- a beautiful melody made by an angel
V8- a sound so beautiful you can never forget
V6- vacuum cleaner.
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All just noise compared to a Merlin....
 
As usual, a lot of thread drift and people missing the point on here.

There are a bunch of problems with the situation in Las Vegas.

The FAA is supposed to be in charge of who gets to takeoff or land at a public airport. If a county government can set arbitrary landing fees without input from the public, they can effectively close the airport. A reservation system is understandable for periods of extremely high demand, but the cost of making a reservation should be nominal.

One of the big issues AOPA was supposed to be fighting for was access to public entry/exit gates at public airports. Wonder what happened to that.

C.
 
this is all normal for when some hot event comes to town. If you think this is bad - take a look when the monaco grand prix hits town in monaco for the boats to dock. Its like 6 figures to dock - paid in cash no less).
 
But (happily for us, in general) we don’t live in Monaco or anywhere else where this sort of profit centered perversion of publicly funded infrastructure is customary or accepted.

Specific to this case, it is fundamentally incorrect for local government, holding a regulated monopoly on FAA funded local airports, to make a huge profit from taxpayers using infrastructure for which they have already paid.
 
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Tusayan said:
But (happily for us, in general) we don’t live in Monaco or anywhere else where this sort of profit centered perversion of publicly funded infrastructure is customary or accepted.
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And yet there are continuously calls to “run the government like a business.” If those calls were heeded, this type of thing would be the natural, and to some, desired outcome.

A means neutral lottery seems like a natural and fair means of achieving allocation of a limited resource, but the tendrils of wealth are deep reaching.
 
This is not pricing set by any market, and neither government nor business can operate an unregulated monopoly (in the US). Unfortunately as this case shows, it is not so easy to stop government from doing so. FAA should in this case act to prevent it and protect the taxpayer from abuse by the local government monopoly, but will they?
 
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cowtowner said:
This was posted at HND when I was there a few weeks ago
View attachment 121932
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So it's not about the space allocation, it's about the money.

Surprise.

If Joe Blow has a hangar on airport with space, and decides to allocate, rent, or otherwise permit another aircraft land and taxi directly to that hangar, not utilizing any FBO ramp space or other services, Henderson will still step in on Nov 14-18 and charge their $3000 fee.

121932
 
I don't suppose the insurance premiums for the FBOs at those airports go up when they have a flood of 9-figure jets crammed into the ramp and rolling through with drop-and-gos due to this kind of event. It may actually be that $3,000 per operation is the minimum they can charge and still afford to even stay open that week. It's probably a matter of raking in cash, sure, but I think that the actual economics of the situation could be more complicated than that.
 
I’m skeptical that the insurance companies look at traffic by day…
 
Tusayan said:
This is not pricing set by any market, and neither government nor business can operate an unregulated monopoly (in the US). Unfortunately as this case shows, it is not so easy to stop government from doing so. FAA should in this case act to prevent it and protect the taxpayer from abuse by the local government monopoly, but will they?
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How is this different from a city closing off streets to hold an Indycar race? Those streets are built with taxpayer money.

Or what about sports stadiums in major cities? Those are almost always built with taxpayer dollars. Priced tickets for a pro sports event lately?
 
And the $3000 per landing is in addition to the extra money they will make pumping all the additional fuel that weekend.
 
Half Fast said:
How is this different from a city closing off streets to hold an Indycar race? Those streets are built with taxpayer money.

Or what about sports stadiums in major cities? Those are almost always built with taxpayer dollars. Priced tickets for a pro sports event lately?
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How is it the same? Streets, sidewalks, parks, and public airports are supposed to be open to be used by the public.
 
If they’re allowed to charge $3k, then effectively any municipality could shut down an airport by establishing a $3m landing fee, right?

This has to be counter to FAA grant assurances. If there’s no room on the ramp, just take reservations.
 
dans2992 said:
If they’re allowed to charge $3k, then effectively any municipality could shut down an airport by establishing a $3m landing fee, right?

This has to be counter to FAA grant assurances. If there’s no room on the ramp, just take reservations.
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If they didn't hit you with a fee, we would just fly in and out all day and do drops. That's a lot of movement to cover with the extra workers amd equipment they'll have to truck in. Gotta cover that cost somehow. Supply and demand seems like it's in full effect. They are just lucky they keep it at 3k. These owners would pay 10s of thousands to fly in for theses events. They don't even look at the costs.
 
luvflyin said:
They're balanced. Got no soul. Ya gotsta feel it, not just hear it
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I owned a Harley for a few years, an FLHX. Pretty bike, rode well for what it was, but I eventually grew bored with 65hp driving 800# and no cornering clearance.
 
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