Mesa, AZ city council approves per-landing fee at KFFZ

[MikeD]

City council approved on 23 March a per-landing fee for light airplanes at Falcon Field. The breakdown is as follows:

- FFZ-based fixed-wing at or below 6000 lbs, and above 6000 lbs (first 10 landings per month are free)

- Transient aircraft at or below 6000 lbs, and above 6000 lbs

- FFZ-based rotorcraft, drones

- Transient rotorcraft and drones

The new fees will go into effect May 1.

Here’s the table of charges, and the exemptions to them.

Mesa City Council approves landing fees for all airplanes at Falcon Field

In a unanimous vote on Monday night, Mesa’s City Council approved a $20 landing fee for all airplanes at Falcon Field Airport.

www.abc15.com

 

[NovemberEcho]

That’s actually a lot more reasonable than ISP enacted when I was training there.

 

[bp]

ah yes more safety enhancements of adsb

 

[Murdoughnut]

They need something to think the pipeline of flight students - between this and fuel costs, that should about do it.

 

[Karnage]

Conservatively almost all of those based landing fees for under 6,000lb planes will be paid by CAE who has a large training facility there. Wonder how they will respond to a million dollar annual bump in operating costs? I know they are just on contract with airlines for ab-initio training and can better absorb the costs than just general FBO instruction, but that's still a hefty jump in their costs.

 

[ahw01]

Conservatively almost all of those based landing fees for under 6,000lb planes will be paid by CAE who has a large training facility there. Wonder how they will respond to a million dollar annual bump in operating costs? I know they are just on contract with airlines for ab-initio training and can better absorb the costs than just general FBO instruction, but that's still a hefty jump in their costs.

The plot thickens

 

[MikeD]

Conservatively almost all of those based landing fees for under 6,000lb planes will be paid by CAE who has a large training facility there. Wonder how they will respond to a million dollar annual bump in operating costs? I know they are just on contract with airlines for ab-initio training and can better absorb the costs than just general FBO instruction, but that's still a hefty jump in their costs.

Even if Oxford doesn’t hang out in the traffic pattern there at FFZ, it’s some significant cost adding up just for their planes to launch and recover in a daily period.

Hopefully this isn’t the playbook of city invokes a fee, then airport operations reduce due to the fee, then the city says the airport is underutilized, city proposes selling off parts and more parts of airport to developers, in order to recoup revenue. Eventually, airport gone.

 

[Karnage]

Based on what was posted from the city's presentation, if CAE's based fleet did 3 flights a day for 300 days a year, they would account for all but $50k of the estimated revenue from based planes under 6,000lbs or roughly $1.2 million.

Given how little of their flying is done in the immediate area of FFZ beyond landings, I can see them having a desire to relocate based on that fee structure.

 

[FlyingAccountant]

Based on what was posted from the city's presentation, if CAE's based fleet did 3 flights a day for 300 days a year, they would account for all but $50k of the estimated revenue from based planes under 6,000lbs or roughly $1.2 million.

Given how little of their flying is done in the immediate area of FFZ beyond landings, I can see them having a desire to relocate based on that fee structure.

There's plenty of land at KIWA available.

 

[MikeD]

CAE and possibly some smaller flight schools there leave. I can just see…..Aircraft traffic numbers decline. Questions arise….like does the tower been to be an FAA tower anymore? Maybe it can go contract. Maybe not needed. The underutilized parts of the airport from ops leaving; sell it off or lease it out to non-aviation entities. Further decline of airport ops occurs. Hmm, the airport is on prime land. Ripe to develop into residential/industrial. And the process takes a life of its own…

 

[MikeD]

There's plenty of land at KIWA available.

They could even move to somewhere like P08. Not have to deal with the IWA traffic and higher overall costs of operation. Heck, even CGZ has a ton of ramp space available. As does A39, though don’t know if the tribe envisions that airport as a training center.