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Comment by ssl232

3 days ago

I guess landing fees add to the $100?

Not really for most small airports. The plane is in the $ 200 per hour range, so a 1 hour out and 1 hour back flight is $ 400 in rental and fuel. The landing fee is more like $10-20 and often free if you buy fuel there.

Only big airports with mandatory ground handling are expensive to land at.

  • Typical small US airports still don't charge landing fees to light aircraft, but things are changing. Now that ADS-B[1] is deployed widely, airports are looking at automated landing fee charges as another way to soak pilots, just because they now can. A number of companies are sprouting up to meet this demand and offer airports their turnkey systems to monitor and charge everyone who lands, sharing the profit with the airport.

    1: https://www.wingsmagazine.com/monetizing-ads-b-data/

  • I always envy the US GA scene. So many airports, little or no landing fees, no prior notice required. In the UK it’s almost designed to prevent GA.