User Fees for General Aviation?
March 28th, 2007
Faced with an instrument approach below minimums, how would you react to the notion that a last-minute approach to a nearby airport with better weather would cost you $1,000? Such harried decision making and its negative effect on safety are a way of life for European general aviation pilots.
Fly along with AOPA Pilot Editor-at-Large Thomas A. Horne on an IFR flight across Europe in a Piper Twin Comanche as he deals with just such a situation. The user fees for his 350-nautical-mile flight totaled $233.97.
Weather briefing: $7.80
Filing a flight plan: $4.68
Airport and departure fees: $121.60
Missed instrument approach: $22.10
Second instrument approach: $22.10
Landing fee: $55.69
“European pilots pay more, receive less, and can face higher risks,” Horne writes after the flight in “Euro-Fees Fears.”
If you, as a pilot, want to pay similar fees each time you fly, then sit back and do nothing. Otherwise, please contact your elected representatives and demand they NOT implement aviation user fees.
More info on the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) web site
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