Those ramp fee rip off FBOs. Maybe not.

This thread could really use a poll: do you call FBOs as part of your flight planning?

Yes, if it's a towered field I haven't previously visited. That happens about twice a year. It's not hard to make two phone calls per year.

Mostly I fly to untowered fields, where fees are rarely an issue.
 
I don't understand the difficulty in putting fees on a Web site.

So, the websites are built by professional companies, keeping in mind graphics, user experience and security to name a few things. I can promise you that no web developer would recommend opening an editing function with access to the master html/css/js files for those working behind the FBO desk. That’s one of the dumbest things you could do. So, that’s out. You could pay a premium on top of the standard monthly maintenance cost to have your website provider upload current fees. That kind of granular service would come at a premium, and there go your fee hikes for pilots.

A program interface could be built which would allow FBO users to upload data to the main website without actually accessing the main files ... sure. Again, that’s going to cost you, and likely the main website would have to be rebuilt to incorporate that level of functionality.

You might think I’m being dramatic. But I’m not. These are real-life issues. Keeping a professionally built website updated on a daily basis is no small feat.

Or... you can make a phone call.
 
So, the websites are built by professional companies, keeping in mind graphics, user experience and security to name a few things. I can promise you that no web developer would recommend opening an editing function with access to the master html/css/js files for those working behind the FBO desk. That’s one of the dumbest things you could do. So, that’s out. You could pay a premium on top of the standard monthly maintenance cost to have your website provider upload current fees. That kind of granular service would come at a premium, and there go your fee hikes for pilots.

A program interface could be built which would allow FBO users to upload data to the main website without actually accessing the main files ... sure. Again, that’s going to cost you, and likely the main website would have to be rebuilt to incorporate that level of functionality.

You might think I’m being dramatic. But I’m not. These are real-life issues. Keeping a professionally built website updated on a daily basis is no small feat.

Or... you can make a phone call.

If that costs you more than $1000 for a multi-Airport company website you hired the wrong web consultant.

$2000 to link it to Twilio and have it be settable from an SMS message or a voice menu on an 800 number.

Anything being updated on the web “on a daily basis” is already database driven or it’s built wrong.

If some “web consultant” is sitting around taking phone calls for manual updates they’re ripping the company off completely, milking hours out of them.
 
If that costs you more than $1000 for a multi-Airport company website you hired the wrong web consultant.

$2000 to link it to Twilio and have it be settable from an SMS message or a voice menu on an 800 number.

Anything being updated on the web “on a daily basis” is already database driven or it’s built wrong.

If some “web consultant” is sitting around taking phone calls for manual updates they’re ripping the company off completely, milking hours out of them.
 
Fine. That’s still a phone call. That’s what this whole stupid thread is about. So is the discussion evolving to accommodate people afraid of human contact?

I’m just kinda baffled over this. Why not just throw the relavent info into AWOS then? Dial it up and get winds, the nearest steakhouse, rental car rates, as well as landing fees. Maybe put in some runway sensors so that every time you bounce a landing the system sends a message over CTAS for everyone to hear how your landing rate is $20, $40, $80 ....

The person asked why isn’t it easy to just throw the info on a website. I answered that. If you run your own little podunk website then sure it’s easy. Until you go somewhere. Then things might get outdated. Then landing pilots will be angry. This really isn’t a difficult discussion. People are making it difficult out of boredom.
 
Fine. That’s still a phone call. That’s what this whole stupid thread is about. So is the discussion evolving to accommodate people afraid of human contact?

You missed that I was saying I could make the website update by a phone call from an employee if they wanted. Not a phone call from a customer.

Easy. Two days of coding if you’re lazy and want to debug it fully.

I was countering your “websites are hard to update” commentary.

If you hired a “web consultant” who can’t stick a fee table into your website in a day, you definitely hired the wrong web consultant.

If they can’t add phone updates via Twilio in another day, they’re really not good at this IT thing. :)
 
Maybe. But think who the consumer FBOs are for this. Where do you land? Most of us land at smaller joints where prices are generally cheaper. And instead of rental cars you get free transport within reason.

Most small places won’t care to deal with the headache. The larger places don’t care cuz they will get the asking price regardless.

Sorry if I overdramatized the website deal, I really didn’t mean to. But, you still are paying money for that which a small FBO won’t care to invest in when they have a phone number.

This whole argument is over flight planning. I think it’s stupid to just not call. Heck, Denver Pilot, the only time I departed Denver for salt lake was on a Super Bowl Sunday. And there is only one reasonable refuel point in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. You better believe I called them and let them know my intentions. Called them twice actually due to a delayed departure. This whole website argument is silly.
 
This whole argument is over flight planning. I think it’s stupid to just not call. Heck, Denver Pilot, the only time I departed Denver for salt lake was on a Super Bowl Sunday. And there is only one reasonable refuel point in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. You better believe I called them and let them know my intentions. Called them twice actually due to a delayed departure. This whole website argument is silly.

LOL Wyoming. Where the men are men, and the sheep are scared. ;)

The argument is silly only for the small places because those same small places rarely charge fees, and rarely gouge people.

No fees, no need to be transparent and put them on your website. Easy. $0 is $0.

Big fees, and sweetheart deals with kickbacks to the airport and your “favorite” local politicians? Publish those. I’m sure the place already has a website spooging over its own travertine tile floor renovations and built in Starbucks for their “profitable” clientele in the jets.

Not that there’s anything wrong with jets and multi-gazillionaires flying on them, it’s just a different world than the broke ass world of training, but the training keeps the 100LL flowing.

Not at the rate the Jet-A is flowing, but adding dumb fees for parking for aircraft that probably would show up for fuel multiple times a week, usually in gaggles from the same flight school when all the CFIs talk and mention the naughty list of FBOs in the area, is a dumb way to lose semi-significant fuel flowage.

Like I said before on this topic, if the goal is not to drive off trainees and instructors don’t gouge. We all talk and we all know to avoid you.

If you run an FBO and don’t see far off trainer aircraft on a regular basis, you have a reputation already or your airport is hideously unsuitable for some reason for XCs or recommending people go to your airport on required solo XCs.

Big hint if you never see training traffic from elsewhere on your ramp. Everybody talks. News gets around fast.
 
Two things I've learned along the way.

1. I call or email FBOs to find out their practices. Especially on an overnight, it also helps me find out such things as whether the FBO has a corporate rate for hotels and rental cars. I've stayed in some pretty nice places at a good rate and even found rooms set aside at places that were full. Best example of that wasn't a call ahead. I diverted to ABQ due to thunderstorms and got a great room at a great price in the middle of the Balloon Fiesta. Rental discounts are more hit or miss. I usually compare them with what I can get myself and the results vary...a lot.

2. At larger airports, the FBO is often a sublessee of a ground lease. As part of the deal, the FBO is responsible for improvement and maintenance of "their" ramp. That can involve some pretty substantial costs. I don't fault them for trying to recapture those, but if they are well above what I am willing to pay, I use someone or someplace else.
 
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Two things I've learned along the way.

1. I call or email FBOs to find out their practices. Especially on an overnight, it also helps me find out such things as whether the FBO has a corporate rate for hotels and rental cars. I've stayed in some pretty nice places at a good rate and even found rooms set aside at places that were full. Best example of that wasn't a call ahead. I diverted to ABQ due to thunderstorms and got a great room at a great price in the middle of the Balloon Fiesta. Rental discounts are more hit or miss. I usually compare them with what I can get myself and the results vary...a lot.

2. At larger airports, the FBO is often a sublessee of a ground lease. As part of the deal, the FBO is responsible for improvement and maintenance of "theirl ramp. That can involve some pretty substantial costs. I don't fault them for trying to recapture those, but if they are well above what I am willing to pay, I use someone or someplace else.
1) Good luck getting a reply within a week, if at all. And then "Surprise!" --after having your wheels touch the ramp-- when the $10/hr receptionist "made a mistake" and forgot to tell you about the myriad of "fees" that "everyone knows about."
2) Nickel and dining with fees calculated to make 50% higher fuel prices than at Homedrome look like a better "alternative" than just paying up and just plain arbitrary pricing (why is a light twin much more expensive to park than a similar-footprint single?)

In many places it's a monopoly so you don't get to "use someone else", or there is no practical alternative.
 
Two things I've learned along the way.

1. I call or email FBOs to find out their practices. Especially on an overnight, it also helps me find out such things as whether the FBO has a corporate rate for hotels and rental cars. I've stayed in some pretty nice places at a good rate and even found rooms set aside at places that were full. Best example of that wasn't a call ahead. I diverted to ABQ due to thunderstorms and got a great room at a great price in the middle of the Balloon Fiesta. Rental discounts are more hit or miss. I usually compare them with what I can get myself and the results vary...a lot.
.
This is worth repeating for newbie travelers. I would go so far as to say that practically all FBOs have access to some discounted hotel rooms. Not always the best place location or quality wise but rarely the worse. Often a better price than you can get independently. And if there’s an event that has every room in the area booked with the only remaining rooms charging rack, the FBO may be your best shot.

In the case of rooms you generally don’t need to call ahead and sometimes it won’t do any good. Show up and say you need a cheap room seems to be what they are setup to handle.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
That is no longer true everywhere now, but used to be a good rule-of-thumb to use a decade ago.

The “guilty parties” as Palm puts it, are usually the “offenders” in that longstanding but unwritten rule. Large fancy FBO chains that make deals with airports to give the airport kickbacks in their leases.

Rarely does the airport bring up that idea first. It’s the chain that says “Want some money? We know exactly how to extort it without your taxpayers or voters noticing...” without saying that, of course.

Not on paper anyway. No evidence trail of collusion.

Do have an example or two? It’s just not happening to me.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
Do have an example or two? It’s just not happening to me.

I think most of the named FBOs in the AOPA lawsuit we’re doing some form of it.

I can only find it around here at FBOs who have on airport competition and are actively keeping light GA away.

Someone mentioned Signature Santa Fe as a possible offender but I haven’t fully checked into that. That’s probably the closest one to my home base.

Oh wait, KASE is. Everyone around here knows you go nowhere near that place during ski season when the ramp is packed with bejillionaire jets. The fees MIGHT be negotiable in summer, but peak ski season you even sneeze in the direction of the ramp, you’ll be paying a hefty fee. It won’t be waived if you just pop in for fuel.

As many have pointed out, it’s more prevalent at popular tourist traps. And also more prevalent in cities where gouging tourists is a way of life where the city is already doing that elsewhere in town, the airport is just an added bonus round.
 
1) Good luck getting a reply within a week, if at all. And then "Surprise!" --after having your wheels touch the ramp-- when the $10/hr receptionist "made a mistake" and forgot to tell you about the myriad of "fees" that "everyone knows about."
2) Nickel and dining with fees calculated to make 50% higher fuel prices than at Homedrome look like a better "alternative" than just paying up and just plain arbitrary pricing (why is a light twin much more expensive to park than a similar-footprint single?)

In many places it's a monopoly so you don't get to "use someone else", or there is no practical alternative.
Let's say my experience has not been as bad as yours.
 
Are you saying that all the ramp fees are local taxes? I thought it was necessary for the FBO to maintain the ramp spaces and facilities.
Just goes to prove the only thing cheap in aviation is the pilots.
 
So you roll up to the ramp and you think you have the right to use the public ramp and gate free of charge if only Mr. Ripoff FBO wasn’t demanding egregious fees.

“(b) Ramp Fee: Any City controlled ramp related uses by Lessee that are not included in the Leased Premises shall be for public use and subject to a Ramp Fee, as established by the City. The Ramp Fee shall be set annually by the City for use of City controlled ramp. Lessee or sub lessee shall remit to the City seventy-five percent (75%) of all revenues received for use of City controlled ramp or equivalent charges within ten (10) calendar days following the end of the month in which the ramp was utilized, accompanied by an accounting of all City controlled ramp rental activity. Lessee shall retain the remaining twenty-five percent (25%) of such revenues as consideration for Lessee’s management of said City controlled ramp rental and collection of resulting revenues. The City retains the right to enter upon City controlled ramp at any time and to take an inventory of any aircraft parked on the City controlled ramp, as well as a right to audit Lessee’s or sublessee’s accounting of City controlled ramp rental activity. Lessee or sublessee cannot charge any fees for use of the City controlled ramp other than the Ramp Fee set by the City for use of City controlled ramp and cannot waive any fees set by the City and due to the City for use of City controlled ramp without City’s written approval. The calculated fuel flowage fee shall be due and payable by the 20th of the month in the month reported.”

So of that $25 you are bitching about, the FBO gets $6.25.



.

That's a lease agreement you posted, not an FAA regulation. The above only applies to the Williston, ND airport (KISN). http://www.cityofwilliston.com/FBO Sample Lease v2 clean.pdf

There are many cases where the city gets a flowage fee on fuel sales, but the FBO keeps the entire ramp fee.
 
That's a lease agreement you posted, not an FAA regulation. The above only applies to the Williston, ND airport (KISN). http://www.cityofwilliston.com/FBO Sample Lease v2 clean.pdf

There are many cases where the city gets a flowage fee on fuel sales, but the FBO keeps the entire ramp fee.

Do you think a small city in ND dreamed up that ramp fee or the just copied what others were doing?

https://www.ecgairport.com/for-pilots/rules-and-regulations.html#section8

8.4 Aircraft Parking Fees
Aircraft parking on ramp areas shall be appropriately charged.



There are zero FBOs collecting ramp fees from a ramp they are not paying airport authority rent. .

And no it is not an FAA regulation nor did I suggest it was.
 
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There you go. Perfect job for you. You can sit out on the ramp all day under an umbrella recording the ramp users, collecting the fees, preparing the monthly report, and submitting the airports share for $6 an arrival. You will be rich I tell ya. LOL

There's a company that does that in NJ or NY. I flew over an airport, didn't land, and got a landing fee bill in the mail. Someone is making money off of it.
 
[QUOTE="denverpilot, snip......

As many have pointed out, it’s more prevalent at popular tourist traps. And also more prevalent in cities where gouging tourists is a way of life where the city is already doing that elsewhere in town, the airport is just an added bonus round. [/QUOTE]

It is "Christmas in July" weekend here.
The local Country Inn & Suites by Radisson is charging $300/night for rooms that are normally advertised for $97

It is not just aviation.
 
Do you think a small city in ND dreamed up that ramp fee or the just copied what others were doing?

You saying they’re too stupid to write their own legal documents in ND?

Or that they’re just good at copying other ripoffs?

:)
 
Not to mention the fact that in many (most?) cases, the land the airport sits on was given to the city by the federal government for public use, only as an airport. And, the city receives federal funds to maintain the thing.

I don't mind paying ramp fees, but like many here, I would like to know what they are and what the alternatives might be. Like, where can you go on the airport (if anywhere) without paying the FBO? The example I have given lately: my son visited me and we went for a short flightseeing trip. We were near Telluride, so I thought I would do a quick landing there to show him the airport environment, which is pretty impressive. I had been there before a few times and was charged a ramp fee for a 10 minute bathroom stop, fair enough. This time, we landed, taxied immediately back (showing him the cool real-time density altitude readout on the sign next to the taxiway) and as we prepared to depart, the FBO called and insisted we taxi 1/4 mile back to the FBO, to pay them. We had never even left the main taxiway.

Your complaint is a little disingenuous. The Telluride FBO collects a landing fee that is assessed by the county. They don't have a choice.

The fee is prominently posted on the airport's website. You could have checked before landing, called them, or asked on the CTAF.

How many people complaining here actually contacted the FBO before showing up on their ramp?

Nightly Tie Down Fee Per Aircraft Square Foot

Piston Aircraft: .02

Jet/Turbo Prop: .04

Landing Fee (All aircraft)

Up to 12,500 lbs. $2.00 per 1000 lbs. of certificated takeoff weight.

>12, 500 lbs. $4.75 per 1000 lbs. of certificated takeoff weight


http://tellurideairport.com/aircraft-pilot-services/

The FBO webpage says they don't charge a ramp fee, which I find impressive. Land at Montrose, park at Atlantic, and ask them. The answer won't be the same.

https://www.globalair.com/airport/fbo-at-TEX-telluride-regional-airport-1352.aspx
 
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Your complaint is a little disingenuous. The Telluride FBO collects a landing fee that is assessed by the county. They don't have a choice.

The fee is prominently posted on the airport's website. You could have checked before landing, called them, or asked on the CTAF.

How many people complaining here actually contacted the FBO before showing up on their ramp?

Nightly Tie Down Fee Per Aircraft Square Foot

Piston Aircraft: .02

Jet/Turbo Prop: .04

Landing Fee (All aircraft)

Up to 12,500 lbs. $2.00 per 1000 lbs. of certificated takeoff weight.

>12, 500 lbs. $4.75 per 1000 lbs. of certificated takeoff weight


http://tellurideairport.com/aircraft-pilot-services/

The FBO webpage says they don't charge a ramp fee, which I find impressive. Land at Montrose, park at Atlantic, and ask them. The answer won't be the same.

https://www.globalair.com/airport/fbo-at-TEX-telluride-regional-airport-1352.aspx

That could be a fun one for some bejillionaire visiting to sick a bored retained lawyer on. Wasn’t voted upon by the county residents under TABOR, could argue it’s an illegal tax, hidden as a fee.

I keep hoping someone bored and who has lawyers on retainer decides to hammer a Colorado county over that stuff and set legal precedent, sooner or later.

Probably lose, but it would be fun to scare the crap out of the bigger counties who are flatly abusing State law by calling everything fees now.
 
Your complaint is a little disingenuous. The Telluride FBO collects a landing fee that is assessed by the county. They don't have a choice.

The fee is prominently posted on the airport's website. You could have checked before landing, called them, or asked on the CTAF.

How many people complaining here actually contacted the FBO before showing up on their ramp?

Nightly Tie Down Fee Per Aircraft Square Foot

Piston Aircraft: .02

Jet/Turbo Prop: .04

Landing Fee (All aircraft)

Up to 12,500 lbs. $2.00 per 1000 lbs. of certificated takeoff weight.

>12, 500 lbs. $4.75 per 1000 lbs. of certificated takeoff weight


http://tellurideairport.com/aircraft-pilot-services/

The FBO webpage says they don't charge a ramp fee, which I find impressive. Land at Montrose, park at Atlantic, and ask them. The answer won't be the same.

https://www.globalair.com/airport/fbo-at-TEX-telluride-regional-airport-1352.aspx

If they had a flashing FEES sign next to the VASI and $ symbols painted on the runway they would complain the airport didn’t call them in advance of their flight.
 
All this arguing. The real reason they don't post them has nothing to do with difficulty or some imagined extreme cost to put fees on a freaking website once a year.

They do it because they think it makes them more money in the end. Just like the "call for price" people who think getting someone on the phone means a higher probability of a sale.

It'd be better if FBOs were just honest about it when asked why they won't post fees (maybe some are?) instead of all these mostly non-sensical excuses being given.
 
All this arguing. The real reason they don't post them has nothing to do with difficulty or some imagined extreme cost to put fees on a freaking website once a year.

Yeah, the “websites are hard” crap ended in the late 1990s. Maybe early 2000s if you were a complete idiot about how to run your business website.

But it’s fun to look back at the company website in the wayback machine, that didn’t have a database behind it and easy changes back in 1991...

Mmmm. Blink tags. Fancy. :)
 
So, the websites are built by professional companies, keeping in mind graphics, user experience and security to name a few things. I can promise you that no web developer would recommend opening an editing function with access to the master html/css/js files for those working behind the FBO desk. That’s one of the dumbest things you could do. So, that’s out. You could pay a premium on top of the standard monthly maintenance cost to have your website provider upload current fees. That kind of granular service would come at a premium, and there go your fee hikes for pilots.

A program interface could be built which would allow FBO users to upload data to the main website without actually accessing the main files ... sure. Again, that’s going to cost you, and likely the main website would have to be rebuilt to incorporate that level of functionality.

You might think I’m being dramatic. But I’m not. These are real-life issues. Keeping a professionally built website updated on a daily basis is no small feat.

Or... you can make a phone call.

Most professional websites these days are built using content management systems like Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress etc. They all have ways that users can easily edit and update content without editing any html, css or any underlying structure.

The reason FBOs don't advertise egregious fees is they know people will avoid them and fly to another FBO if at all possible. I had this experience a couple of years ago when I landed and the FBO notified me that they need to collect a $150 ramp fee. No discount with the purchase of fuel either...Thanks!
 
Most professional websites these days are built using content management systems like Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress etc. They all have ways that users can easily edit and update content without editing any html, css or any underlying structure.

The reason FBOs don't advertise egregious fees is they know people will avoid them and fly to another FBO if at all possible. I had this experience a couple of years ago when I landed and the FBO notified me that they need to collect a $150 ramp fee. No discount with the purchase of fuel either...Thanks!
What were you flying and where was this?
 
That’s surprising-I have heard Norwood was the most GA friendly airport in Beantown region.
 
You saying they’re too stupid to write their own legal documents in ND?

Or that they’re just good at copying other ripoffs?

:)
I won’t get into whether we are stupid or plagiarists. But KISN is a terrible example to use for anything at all. It is being replaced by a new airport outside town, probably ill-advised but time will tell. It has grown from a post 1980s oil bust population of 10,000 to possibly 50,000 in the Bakken boom cycle. The local government has been scrambling to catch up for almost a decade. This is where they were flying bulldozer transmissions out in PC-12’s for overhauls because that was cheaper than using local labor. One hotel’s rate was $90 a night to sleep in the chair in the lobby back in 2012 when you couldn’t find a hotel room anywhere in the western half of the state. The apartment rent was higher than anywhere in the US, including Manhattan. And then the insane growth cycle over-compensated just as oil prices tanked and things slowed (but did not come anywhere near stopping). I doubt that there is another airport anywhere in the world comparable to the situation at KISN.
 
Your complaint is a little disingenuous. The Telluride FBO collects a landing fee that is assessed by the county. They don't have a choice.

The fee is prominently posted on the airport's website. You could have checked before landing, called them, or asked on the CTAF.

How many people complaining here actually contacted the FBO before showing up on their ramp?
...........

Not disingenuous, just surprised by the policy. I have spent most of my flying career in Alaska, and have recently moved to the mountain west. One thing that strikes me as odd is the lack of aircraft operations at pretty much every western slope airport I have visited (I imagine metro Denver fields are busier). During the summer, at my little podunk airport in Soldotna, AK, there will be more flight ops per day than KTEX does in a week. As far as I know, ramp and landing fees for aircraft less than 12,500 lbs are pretty much non-existent in AK and general aviation flying is bustling. Merrill Field in Anchorage has numbers of flight ops which rival the busiest airports in the U.S., and yet you can stop at Merrill, pick up passengers and take a pee, without paying a fee other than fuel if you need it. I guess I will get into the habit of calling ahead prior to touching my wheels down at any new field, I just haven't yet.

And again, I DID NOT "show up on the FBO's ramp" I landed, taxied back without entering the ramp area, and prepared to depart. There was no traffic on the radio (other than the FBO) for the 30 minutes I was in the area.
 
...I have spent most of my flying career in Alaska...As far as I know, ramp and landing fees for aircraft less than 12,500 lbs are pretty much non-existent in AK and general aviation flying is bustling. Merrill Field in Anchorage has numbers of flight ops which rival the busiest airports in the U.S., and yet you can stop at Merrill, pick up passengers and take a pee, without paying a fee other than fuel if you need it....
Impossible! That's illegal, immoral, and violates the laws of physics! ;)
 
Flew to an airport today that’s 52nm away for an xc landed with my student and decided to stop so I could fix his headset jack. airport is in the middle of nowhere empty ramp with a rough looking fbo/hangar some guy walks out and asked if we needed anything I said no just fixing this real quick and he tried to get 10 bucks from me. I think he was taken aback when I said nah I’m bout to take back off. Now I’ll never go back and the 11 other instructors my school has won’t go there either even though we were all looking for another good 50nm spot for student xc.

I don’t mind spending money for gas and always hit up whatever vending or food options they have. I don’t even mind ramp fees if they were for some service or overnight but paying just for the privilege of taxiing onto a ramp with 40 open spots weeds all around and 1 ratty 152 tieddown/sunk into the pavement... no thanks.
 
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