Landing fees

As a condition of engaging in … aeronautical use Signature’s facility,” and that this is a “common business practice.” Based on the information AOPA provided, the FAA said it couldn’t draw any conclusions about Signature’s rate structure and it added that “FBOs are not required to be transparent with their pricing.” Further, said the FAA, “Signature has assumed a certain level of risk by investing in its facilities at the airport … and is entitled to pursue the business model that provides a return on this investment.”
Palmpilot said:
They can, but typically they have the price posted at the entrance, so that you can still go elsewhere if you don't like what you see. I don't think I've ever seen a lot, public or private, where the only way to find out the price before you commit to it is to call them on the phone.
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And parking lots don’t have Unicom frequencies for you to call 25 miles from your destination.
 
Clip4 said:
And parking lots don’t have Unicom frequencies for you to call 25 miles from your destination.
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Calling on UNICOM for prices? Seriously. Are you high? You don’t plan to get 25 miles from somewhere and then change destinations after a lengthy conversation with all the surrounding FBOs on UNICOM frequencies to get the best bid on fuel. LOL. That’s retarded.

The whole secretive thing is chicken****. Just put your prices on your web pages. All of the prices. Ramp fees, everything.

I’d even make sure to go to places that did it, even if they were marginally higher priced than their nearby “competitors” who refuse to actually compete.

But until then it’s well known which places rip people off consistently around here and which ones don’t and word gets around. It’s really only the traveling transients that get screwed by these secret decoder ring policies.

Everyone in a local area knows about five seconds after some FBO screws a flight school or instructor or student on fees or outrageous fuel prices. And then we send the students elsewhere. Sometimes that’s what these places want. Other times they’re just dumb and think nobody talks.
 
eman1200 said:
Yes, RDU has fees.
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Well, the FBOs charge a fee for using their ramp. I don’t use them much except as a backup for my home port and to pickup the occasional airline passenger, though I used to go there for lunch at the runway cafe (gone now). I’ve never bought fuel (because I have fuel 10 miles away). I’ve paid a fee once, maybe twice at either of the (various) FBOs there over the last 20 years and 20-30 or so visits.

People, you need to smile more, be nice, and don’t dread the potential $20 charge so much. Like many larger Airport FBOs, the person at the desk would rather not charge you if they can get away with it. YMMV


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Bill Watson said:
People, you need to smile more, be nice, and don’t dread the potential $20 charge so much. Like many larger Airport FBOs, the person at the desk would rather not charge you if they can get away with it. YMMV
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I’ve called and negotiated away fees before. Have also asked for a discount on fuel if I knew I was staying in the area when flying for a week or similar. If there’s some good business reason most all FBOs that charge too much will negotiate.

It’s just a huge PITA. But I’m plenty nice when asking if it’ll save me hundreds.

You’re right about $20. That’s nothing to worry about. When they start asking for $45 to park for five minutes to drop someone off, with no services rendered whatsoever, they can suck it.
 
RDUPilot said:
I would still cal Morgan and get the information first hand. I know what I have been told and what I have seen. I am not an owner so there that...

So there are three airports within the RDU area where you can consider housing your aircraft..
View attachment 64367
I think the Chapel Hill airport is closing so no longer an option... Depending where you live in the area, one may be a better option than the others.
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And 8NC8 @ 10 miles north but it’s an ‘R’



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Clip4 said:
Yes, and sometimes the airport leases those parking lots to private companies who make a profit for operating them. Which is no different in what the airport is doing with the FBO. Instead of renting the parking lot, they are renting the ramp.
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Except that the ramp is part of the fundamental airport infrastructure, parking lots are for convenience.

denverpilot said:
Public parking lots. Private, the price can change hourly if they like.

Although I’m surprised with all the automation in the world the public lots don’t have central and automatic price changes by traffic and giving all the profit to some private company, like many places are doing with toll roads on Interstates.
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Cause there are rules about advertising.
 
retpd2001 said:
What is the deal with this site. I entered several locations that I know have fees but they did not show. Lots of good info about the location though. Am I missing something?
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I was wrong that it's just crowdsourced - they have people making calls to the fbo's for fees as well as taking PIREPS online. They may not have gotten to the specific FBO's yet
 
Last edited:
Use whatever business model you want. Charge whatever you want. But publish the info so people can choose without undue inconvenience.

I live in central Florida, home of Walt Disney World, Sea World, Universal Studios, etc. and more tourist businesses than you can imagine. The whole "don't tell them what you charge until they're committed" is a common tactic of the bottom feeders in that business. They get away with it because they know 1) virtually everybody they deal with is transient, 2) people on vacation will put up with it, 3) the tourists don't talk amongst themselves.

The lack of transparency with some FBOs is pure Confusopoly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly). It's certainly legal, but it's unethical because it's intended to mislead or hide information. There is no other valid business reason I can see for it other than to trap people into paying what they would not voluntarily pay given the choice ahead of time.

Paint it up with free enterprise and capitalism all you like, it's still unethical.

John
 
Clip4 said:
And parking lots don’t have Unicom frequencies for you to call 25 miles from your destination.
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Awesome, so tie up a frequency that might cover dozens of nearby airports so you can inquire and negotiate the secret fees.
 
jsstevens said:
There is no other valid business reason I can see for it other than to trap people into paying what they would not voluntarily pay given the choice ahead of time.

John
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Which is idiotic since the people most likely to balk are the ones the FBO doesn't want there in the first place.
 
Lindberg said:
What does this mean? Should people who own airplanes go ok with throwing money away? I don't see the logical connection.
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Sure, why not, they just spent $25 on a $2 spark plug (because it says "airplane" on the box it came in), so they must have money to burn!
 
N1120A said:
The FBOs are using public land to charge fees. Transient parking should be free.
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Do the FBOs get to use that land for free, or do they pay a fee for the privilege? If it is public land, they should be able to use it for free, right?
 
JOhnH said:
Do the FBOs get to use that land for free, or do they pay a fee for the privilege? If it is public land, they should be able to use it for free, right?
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You don't seem get the whole rotten concept of a publicly owned/funded venue forcing its users to do business with a monopoly that hides its prices until you've encroached on their leased premises, with no option to avoid having to do business with them.
 
paflyer said:
You don't seem get the whole rotten concept of a publicly owned/funded venue forcing its users to do business with a monopoly that hides its prices until you've encroached on their leased premises, with no option to avoid having to do business with them.
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Oh, I get it ok. And I am in agreement with those who's complaint is the lack of transparency of those fees.

But where I disagree is with those that complain about the fact that there ARE fees and say using those facilities should be free. Or those that think they can dictate how those fees are levied.
 
JOhnH said:
Do the FBOs get to use that land for free, or do they pay a fee for the privilege? If it is public land, they should be able to use it for free, right?
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And the airlines should use the gates, passenger waiting area for free. And all those gift shops and restaurants, why are they paying. I think you have the right answer.
 
Clip4 said:
And the airlines should use the gates, passenger waiting area for free. And all those gift shops and restaurants, why are they paying. I think you have the right answer.
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Don't change the subject. We're not talking about commercial airline operations.
 
JOhnH said:
Oh, I get it ok. And I am in agreement with those who's complaint is the lack of transparency of those fees.

But where I disagree is with those that complain about the fact that there ARE fees and say using those facilities should be free. Or those that think they can dictate how those fees are levied.
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There should not be a toll gate for access on/off an airport that takes public money.
 
paflyer said:
Don't change the subject. We're not talking about commercial airline operations.
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Really? 135 air taxi, for profit fractional ownership companies and for profit companies with their own flight departments are the main FBO customers and that’s who AOPA is arguing for.

If FBOs had to depend on people who were not flying associated with profit, none of the big FBOs would exist.

If you have a right to free use of a tax funded airport, so does everyone else. Unless you are somehow special.
 
paflyer said:
There should not be a toll gate for access on/off an airport that takes public money.
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Why not?

I go to many of the local airport board meetings. A continual topic of conversation is the budget and how difficult it is to fund. Federal funding requires some amount of local match, and most local taxpayers don't want to pay additional tax to fund the airport. There are a ton of expenses involved with running an airport, and the money has to come from somewhere. The general consensus, and I agree, is that the airport should be a financial generator for the city, not a drain, or at a very very minimum, self sustaining. As far as I am concerned, user fees make much more sense for this funding than taxes.
 
JOhnH said:
Why not?

I go to many of the local airport board meetings. A continual topic of conversation is the budget and how difficult it is to fund. Federal funding requires some amount of local match, and most local taxpayers don't want to pay additional tax to fund the airport. There are a ton of expenses involved with running an airport, and the money has to come from somewhere. The general consensus, and I agree, is that the airport should be a financial generator for the city, not a drain, or at a very very minimum, self sustaining. As far as I am concerned, user fees make much more sense for this funding than taxes.
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I have to wonder what some of those who are obsessed about ramp fees would say if their airport told them they were increasing their fuel price, increasing their hangar rent and lower the FBOs rent so transients could have free parking.
 
Clip4 said:
I have to wonder what some of those who are obsessed about ramp fees would say if their airport told them they were increasing their fuel price, increasing their hangar rent and lower the FBOs rent so transients could have free parking.
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That would actually make sense. You know, charging a profitable rate for services people are using, instead of charging them for merely existing.
 
Clip4 said:
The same people who wanted those palaces are the same people who are now whining to the AOPA about having to pay royal tribute.
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I don't think the people who are objecting to fees are the same people who wanted palaces. There's a big difference between the wants and needs of the jet set vs people who can barely afford to rent a 172 once a week.
 
I'm still puzzled at what the motivating angle would be for the FAA in supporting the obfuscation of pricing disclosure in these cases. Unless we have a case of typical personal corruption within certain administrators of the agency looking at their post-civil service landing pads, I can't see where the FAA would benefit as a whole from siding with that practice.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I'm still puzzled at what the motivating angle would be for the FAA in supporting the obfuscation of pricing disclosure in these cases. Unless we have a case of typical personal corruption within certain administrators of the agency looking at their post-civil service landing pads, I can't see where the FAA would benefit as a whole from siding with that practice.
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As I said many times, I disagree with the obfuscation of pricing. But as far as the FAA goes, and the government in general, how far do you want them to go in mandating how a business operates or how much they charge? I'm not sure where the line is. I would agree that posting incorrect pricing should be prohibited, but other than that, do you really want a government entity enforcing such rules on businesses as to how they disclose their prices? Or which prices they disclose? Do you just want them to disclose gas and ramp fees? How about APU fees? Where should the mandates stop? Who decides?
 
JOhnH said:
As I said many times, I disagree with the obfuscation of pricing. But as far as the FAA goes, and the government in general, how far do you want them to go in mandating how a business operates or how much they charge? I'm not sure where the line is. I would agree that posting incorrect pricing should be prohibited, but other than that, do you really want a government entity enforcing such rules on businesses as to how they disclose their prices? Or which prices they disclose? Do you just want them to disclose gas and ramp fees? How about APU fees? Where should the mandates stop? Who decides?
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Attempting to claim slippery slopes in order to preserve the status quo doesn't really strike me as persuasive nor productive. It's pretty simple really: You don't disclose the prices in verbal and/or written/posted, I don't owe you the fee in question just because you see me cross an imaginary line on the ground. Done. This isn't tantamount to telling a business what to charge.

And as to the suggestion this call for transparency encroaches too much on HOW a business is allowed to run a business, we already have laws on the books called price gouging laws that already regulate business in more direct ways during social SHTF scenarios (saw it first hand last year during Maria) yet nobody is dusting off the muskets and storming the State Houses over it. As a matter of fact said price gouging laws are incredibly popular as far as regulations go. I only bring that up to compare and contrast the idea, and illustrate that making price transparency regulatory in nature isn't some centrally commanded communist manifesto that seems to trigger the neoliberal supply side freedom fries crowd on here. I think we can truly split the baby here and champion for a little consumer advocacy without corporate sycophants auto-foaming at the mouth over 'no dollar left unraked' behavior.
 
those old enough to remember the fuel crisis back in the early '70s might recall that those posted fuel prices you enjoy these days became required, by law because of the price gouging that was going on (which you didn't know about until you had idled in line for an hour) Would be nice if it were the case for airport fees as well...
 
JOhnH said:
But as far as the FAA goes, and the government in general, how far do you want them to go in mandating how a business operates or how much they charge? I'm not sure where the line is.
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Who decides?
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When you're getting money from the government to build out your airport and probably the building you operate in, you really don't have a lot of wiggle room to claim independence. FBOs that charge more than the average market price will need to justify why they should be charging more for access to the resources built by the government. I think that's where so many FBOs have gone wrong, they have forgotten their public interest responsibilities. They are custodians of the sites they administer, not owners.
 
aaaaaand, if the airport has accepted federal money, they are supposed to allow the ability to get in and out of the fence without being charged for it (the option of not using the FBO)
 
The FBOs do not get tax money. The airport authority does. The FBO pays for the right to operate a business, and that business must charge to be able to pay their expenses. And make a profit (which is NOT a bad word).
 
JOhnH said:
The FBOs do not get tax money. The airport authority does. The FBO pays for the right to operate a business, and that business must charge to be able to pay their expenses. And make a profit (which is NOT a bad word).
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But the airport is still supposed to allow the option of NOT using the FBO.
 
EdFred said:
aaaaaand, if the airport has accepted federal money, they are supposed to allow the ability to get in and out of the fence without being charged for it (the option of not using the FBO)
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Is there really a fee to use the gate? Or was that fee you talk about for parking your airplane?
 
JOhnH said:
Is there really a fee to use the gate? Or was that fee you talk about for parking your airplane?
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If I am dropping someone off (or picking them up) and never leave my plane, I am not parking it, but will still get dinged by Signature. The airport is supposed to allow the ability to NOT use the FBO.
 
EdFred said:
If I am dropping someone off (or picking them up) and never leave my plane, I am not parking it, but will still get dinged by Signature. The airport is supposed to allow the ability to NOT use the FBO.
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If that's true, then I will apologize to you for all the arguments I gave you. Can you cite such a rule? I'd like to have that with me at times.

edit: Well, I might apologize for some of the arguments I gave.
 
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