AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2018 - 24

WAYPOINTS

Helping FBOs understand
the 'R' word

BY THOMAS B. HAINES
Editor in Chief

Why lack of transparency for fees is indefensible

Editor in Chief
TOM HAINES has
flown general aviation airplanes into
airports large and
small all across
the country, and in
many parts of the
world.

24 | AOPA PILOT May 2018

RECENTLY I WROTE ABOUT RISKS in aviation and how
what might seem like a reasonable risk to one person seems completely unreasonable to another (see
"Waypoints: What's the Risk?" March AOPA Pilot).
The question of "reasonableness" has surfaced in
another area of aviation: fees charged to pilots who
want to access the ramps of public-use airports across
the country.
AOPA has written extensively about the charging of
egregious fees by FBOs at 40 to 50 important airports.
The most challenging locations are those where an FBO
holds a monopoly position on the airport, often with
a decades-long lease for all available ramp space and
often many or all hangars as well. Reminds me of the
old days when mining towns existed. The mining company controlled all the jobs, housing, food supply, and
other necessities for the employees, with predictably
low wages and high prices.
One significant difference is that the mining company owned the property where it operated. FBOs,
typically, are built on property that was bought with
federal Airport Improvement Program funds supplied
by the public and through fuel taxes paid by pilots. In
addition, the ramps that monopoly FBOs control are
typically built with those same AIP funds. When an airport agrees to accept those funds, it agrees to certain
stipulations, one of which is that it ensure that the pricing practices of FBOs and other on-airport businesses
are "reasonable and applied in a non-unjustly discriminatory manner." There's that "R" word again.
The pricing practices of some of these monopoly FBO locations have generated more than 1,000
complaints from AOPA members. If you've had a bad
experience, report it to us online (www.aopa.org/
fbofees). Reports of $200 and $300 simply to drop off a
passenger-sometimes without even shutting the engine
down-are not uncommon. In some locations, one can
avoid paying the high fees by buying a certain volume
of fuel. However, at these locations the fuel prices tend
to be excessive, often $1 to $3 a gallon more than other
airports in the region.
The logical question is, why not go to those other
locations-let the "free market" work? Our response is
that pilots should not have to forego the convenience
of the publicly funded airport of their choosing just

because an FBO has managed to lock up all of the available access. These FBOs' monopoly positions eliminate
any pretense of a free market, especially when they
refuse to publish their fees-more on that in a moment.
Airports are not like gas stations, restaurants, or hotels-
all of which are privately funded and relatively easily
built. Airports are publicly funded and require massive
chunks of land. Such large areas of land are frequently
no longer available near desirable locations, so an airport can't be easily replicated. In addition, airports are
part of a larger national aviation transportation system.
High fees inhibit a community's access to that system.
Adding to the frustration is the lack of transparency
regarding the fees. Fuel pricing information these days
is usually available online and through apps, although
at these sorts of locations, many volume buyers are able
to purchase fuel for less than the posted prices. Those
of us buying smaller amounts must suck it up and pay
the list price. However, in most cases, the cost of FBO
ramp fees, infrastructure fees, security fees, and a host
of others-many simply made up as a way to extract
more money from pilots-are not posted anywhere. The
FBOs say the solution is to call the individual location, as
if in the twenty-first century that is somehow a reasonable request. What other product or service you utilize
must you call ahead to find out what it might cost for you
to show up at the business's location? The reason they
want you to call is that they have a complex matrix of
fees based on the size of your aircraft, the value of your
aircraft, and the amount of over-priced fuel you might
purchase. As one observer pointed out, it's as if the prices
you pay at Walmart depend on whether you drive up in a
Chevy or a Mercedes.
So in an effort to help you avoid having to make all
those individual phone calls, AOPA has been attempting to make them for you, and to publish what we find
as part of our online airport directory. Contacting more
than 3,000 FBOs on a regular basis for such information
would be difficult enough, but the task is further complicated by the lack of cooperation from some FBOs and
by the complexity of their fees structures. Some of the
FBOs, usually part of a chain, refuse to provide the fees
for publication. Their excuse is that the fees are complicated and variable. Or, in some cases, because the chain's
headquarters has simply told the individual locations

http://www.aopa.org/fbofees http://www.aopa.org/fbofees

AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2018