Please have a look at this document by ASA. It is well written and presents a balanced (and potentially scary) review of pricing policy. The path ahead will potentially have a HUGE impact on the cost of GA. I strongly urge you to read this and respond directly to ASA with your comments. Please pay particular attention to the price plan that would attempt to recover ACTUAL costs to staff/operate Class C/D airports. If this plan is adopted GA costs could become so prohibitive as to wipe us out. Just my view, but consider that in the document it points out that the actual cost /tonne to land at Camden is around $400!!! If that doesn't scare you I don't know what would.

Go here: http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/pricingproposal/

Can't help wondering which ASA accounting genius worked that one out! I recall attending a meeting at CN a few years ago with one such person who explained they HAD to close the tower on week days on a very similar logically reasoned argument because we just weren't flying enough.... We did a few sums and just could not work out how any rational business could possibly come up with such stupidity... Oh, but of course we're not dealing with a firm that actually has to compete with anyone here are we? It will cost a fortune to run those 'new' Class D Towers for very little benefit and no doubt we just have to grin and bear it! ( or as will probably happen, the tonnes will continue to go somewhere else so ASA can then come up with an even bigger shock-horror cost per tonne figure!)

I'm not going to take sides here, just play devil's advocate. Australia seems to be stuck with a conceptually flawed "user pays" system. The government mandates costs to be recoverable by those who use the system. So what do you do when you have 90% of ASA's budget being paid for by the airlines...those same airlines that can quite reasonably come back and say that they are not even allowed to use Camden Airport? Why should they pay to run the tower? Up until now there has been a sort of network pricing going on. The major capital city airports are subsidizing the cost of personnel and equipment at GAAP airports. This could change for the worse under a new funding plan. This is why I think we had best not be silent about the discussions going on as raised in this ASA document. I think it is important to keep two things separate: it won't do much good to carry on about a system ideally not based on "user pay" given that it isn't "user pay" that is under discussion. (That is a whole other fight.) What is under discussion is an attempt to find a "fair" (if there ever can be such a thing under user pay) way to apportion these costs. The airlines are obviously quite powerful and see GA as essentially useless in spite of the logical arguments re training, blah blah. They see the bottom line...they feel like they are supporting GA. Blame the government for selling off vital infra structure and basically washing their hands of GA. The problem is Australia did this and here we are stuck with it for now. GA will be in a world of hurt if the basic funding structure is modified so please do not be silent on this issue!!!!!

By the way, if you read the ASA document through I think you will come to the conclusion that ASA has the same dilemma as raised in Peter Gibson’s reply above. They are fully aware that costing based on location can result in very high fees that then in fact reduce traffic below the level for which the class of service generating the high cost was brought in for, thus making the exercise pointless and unnecessary. I think ASA would prefer to keep some networking basis for costing. I think a strong GA response supporting this might help them decide to do the right thing. But, given that the airlines pay such a high proportion of ASA’s budget they have a powerful influence. It could be a tough sell.

Speaking of Camden Airport (and all other GAAP airports for that matter) I seem to have missed something in relation to the new system to be introduced:

It seems we are to have a system which will have ground controllers and the requirement for taxi clearances. Just how does this stop mid-air collisions?

Peter Rejto's observations are spot-on. The US, which approaches the whole GA thing quite sensibly in spite of the usual braying from anti-FAA donkeys, still has a policy of supplying basic infrastructure as a fundamental principle. This is roughly comparable to our governments, in general, providing roads so that traffic - some commercial, some private - can get from A to B.

Australia's problem is that GA has not been powerful enough to influence government policy. The result: user pays. Well and good, you might say, that's fair enough. But it isn't, because the "user" is not a single, consistent entity.

For instance, let's say Airlackofservices Australia starts charging $400 for a landing at Camdakotfield. The operator of a Brasilia, say, pays the $400 but defrays this across 30 passengers. That's just over $13 per landing, which sounds fair enough. I land my Mooney there and also pay $400, which comes straight out of my pocket and makes the whole exercise too expensive to sustain.

This interpretation of "user pays" is a gross distortion of what is actually happening. We are unlikely to change government policy; what we might succeed in doing, if enough of us make a fuss, is getting them to amend the policy to take into account this anomaly. I intend to submit this message to the Policy Review.

I believe we are very poorly served in this huge country when it comes to GA airports near capital cities. Sydney is by far the worst-served and GA is under the greatest pressure now that government has handed over prime pieces of runway real estate to developers. This makes it even more vital that some support be given by the Federal government to encourage the survival of GA. Please follow Peter's suggestion and let the Policy Review people have your two bobs' worth.

Cheers,

Tony (I'm thinking of changing my name to Peter because everyone else on this forum seems to bear that moniker)

Thaks Tony, but please don't change your name to "Peter!"

One caution in your example: The Brasilia will weight a lot more than the Mooney, and the charges are based per tonne. But on a location specific user pays scheme the Brasilia will probabbly pay less/tonne landing at SYD than a Mooney does/tonne at Camden. With network pricing, that is, where costs are equally spread out to ALL users everywhere, the landing charges are roughly the same/tonne at every airport. This is pretty much the scheme in play right now. It is the "posibility" of this changing, due to airline pressure, that we must resist! Location specific pricing will kill us!

As some of you may have heard, I am now a board member of AOPA. The topic of pricing has been, and will continue to be, a very large subject of our discussions. Andrew Anderson, now VP of AOPA, was heavily involved in writing AOPA's response to the ASA document. You can read the responses so far collected here:http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/pricingproposal/

Andrew said I could share these comments (which I completely agree with) of his:

"You will observe that no submissions have been received (at least yet) from Rex, Virgin or Qantas; I understand that a time extension has been provided, although it is also possible that they have asked that their submissions remain confidential.

Unsurprisingly, ICAO, BORA and all the international airlines want pure location-specific pricing, while ourselves, Aeropelican, the airports that responded, a few individuals and the SA Government do not.

A disappointing standout among the responses is the one from Singapore Airlines Flying College which apparently thinks that a circuit training charge at double the price of a landing would be reasonable and that "all these proposals have merit and are "in the ball park" for our type of operation" (which include one that would price landings at Camden at $271 per tonne, $129 at Archerfield and $100 at Moorabbin, $66 at Jandakot, but $10 at Maroochydore). If anyone happens to know Captain W B Utermark, Deputy Chief Pilot, Singapore Airlines Flying College, perhaps they could have a quiet word with him. See http://www.igopogo.com/we_have_met.htm

We should not expect that the responses of Qantas or Virgin will in any way support GA and they may well seek a regime of pure location-specific charges, but let's wait and see before jumping the gun.

And - no surprise to anyone - no response from Bankstown Airport Limited, or their counterparts at Moorabbin, Jandakot or Archerfield. It is clearly not in their interests to do anything to support their aviation customers."

Peter

Congrats on your appointment - if indeed that is what is required. You are a braver guy than many for getting involved in all of that!

We are of course wasting (y)our time trying to get any sense out of the likes of Airservices and BAL/CAL.This is probably just another of their box ticking exercises..They don't seem to see any role in providing infrastructure or service to society and only see the 'business case'. Let them charge $271 per tonne (what happened to the $400/tonne btw? Must have rechecked their figures or something?? Hummm!) - and no doubt CAL will have a similarly inaccurate figure to add to that. They seem to have failed to notice that three of their major flying school customers have recently gone out of business... Let's see where all of this will take them. - Another colourbond and brick wondertown on CN, just like the old Oran Park race track up the road, before we know it no doubt! But then of course they'll be no need for BAL/CAL or Airservices towers - and we won't have to pay for their rediculous monopolistic 'business' practices either!

Fact is, all we need is 1000m of dirt somewhere. We just don't need to pay for all of that 'infrastructure' or highly developed, over-priced support services. AOPA might do better leaving Airservices/BAL/CAL to go bust, let their businesses and assets go where normal economic attrition will take them, and start to look for somewhere we can develop a decent recreational GA facility in Sydney, run by sensible people who understand what their customers need and can pay for. The visionaries of Wedderburn, 30 odd years ago had the right idea! I believe a senior figure in AOPA has already proposed something akin to the old Aeroclub idea. (It is interesting to note that of course the Schofields model is one of the most successful around BK at the moment! But how long even that can hold out there under the BAL/CAL/Airservices regime is anyone's guess.) We really have to come up with something that leaves us with a greater degree of contriol over our own destiny....

BTW, Maybe my memory is failing me... but which was the peak GA body that supported and encouraged the move to 'userpays' and removal of subsidies to GAAP towers in the first place - maybe 10 or 15 years ago now?

Peter,

Thanks for your comments. Yes, it is an overwhelming task, but I felt that rather than just shoot my mouth off I ought to try to conribute. What I had not anticipated was the degree of complexity this work involves. I'm up to my eyeballs, and I've only been officially onboard a week!

Yes, it was AOPA those years ago that brought this on us to a degree, and we know what happened to AOPA back then as a result. The past is past, though, and the recent administrations have done the best job possible to mitigate the results, and to try and stem the tide. It would be in all of our interests if the past could be forgotten because at the end of the day AOPA is pretty much the only GA advocate left. If backs are turned now I can tell you it will get a lot worse. Where AOPA has failed, in my view, is to somehow reach non-members and to show them what is and has already been done behind the scenes. This is made known to members, but it is non-members that really need to know what is going on, and to know just how much effort is being made every day.

I have been given portfoilios of Airports and Airspace. These are huge! At the moment there is a proposal to lower Class C lower limits in the NT from 8,000 to 5,000. This would benefit the airlines, but what of GA? To refute the arguments is very complex but incredibly important. AOPA has waged this fight before but it just goes on and on. Stay tuned.

I'm not sure I fully embrace your arguments about GAAP Airports. It is probably not realistic to expect the airports would survive at all if the remain over priced and consequently become ghost towns. Naturally the owners will just sell them off to developers. Sure, Wedderburn is fine for what it is, but with no close by infrastructure it is a very difficult airport to use, especially for the business flyer....and it's so far away from Sydney! Same can even be said for BK. Just getting to the train from BK is hard. Oh well, what you say about just needing a 1,000 meter strip is true, and it may very well be all we shall ever end up with.

Peter,

I admire you for putting your hand up. I am sure you have other things to do with spare time but it will be a thing of the past now. Rocky is Class D and basically the only airport in town apart from a goat track that Jabs use half way to the coast. If they bring in charges here of $170 a tonne or whatever per landing, I may as well sell my aircraft. I know full well that this is the psoition many pilots in the country would be in and it is for that reason that I just cannot see it happening. Who is their right mind in Air Services or the Goct would think that GA could afford those costs. The flow on effect would be enourmous, LAMES, Paint shops, Avionics. I could go on forever. Perhaps I am completely naieve but I just dont see it happening. Surely...

Michael,

Thanks for your comments!

Yes, it seems "impossible" that this could happen, but the fact is that it is under discussion, and our comments have been invited. If enough people respond then it may have an impact in our favor. But, I cannot imagine any lack of respone in a positive light. Lack of response could indicate that nobody really cares. Given the huge pressure from the airlines, after all they pay 80-90% of all ASA costs, it might be hard for ASA to continually defend GA. I don't think ASA is unsupportive of GA's plight, but given the enormous pressure it is not impossible that we will see costing increase for GA...perhaps not the most alarming amounts mentioned, but death by a thousand cuts is still death...

G’day Peter,

Good on you for signing up for the AOPA position. Sorry for not replying sooner but I have been a bit busy lately with work, core business and a project as well!

Don’t be scared of class C airspace per se, it just depends on where, heights, access to various users, and the intended use. I can assure you that there would be no benefit in less class C over Alice Springs to anyone and the class E over Broome and Karratha will be much less useful than if it had been C.

Have you had any feedback regarding the ASA pricing policy?

Regards,

Paul