User fees at North Bend, OR (OTH)

[Zzz]

http://www.kcby.com/news/local/122444549.html

North Bend airport has instituted small aircraft landing fees of $10-25. The airport manager appears to have reasoned this issue out and arrived at the conclusion that transient traffic will supplement their budget.

Oregon pilots, do what you will to make an example of them, or send them a message via their contact form. Ideally, the power of the Internet will cause nothing but the sound of crickets to grace the airport grounds until they give up and move on to bark up the next tree.

North Bend airport website: http://www.flyoth.com

The fee schedule: http://www.flyoth.com/news/OTH_Airport_Use_Fees.pdf

[robw56]

Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to never land there.

EDIT: I didn't see a Cessna 170 on that list so I guess they can't charge me?

[OregonMaule]

My email to Theresa Cook, Executive Director of OTH.

Your plan is just plain stupid. I will not fly to OTH as long as you have landing fees. Your local restaurants and stores won't get my business. You won't sell me gas. Your local citizens will pay higher ticket prices if you are lucky enough not to drive out your commercial airlines.

So Theresa please go FUCK yourself!

[Hafast]

My email to Theresa Cook, Executive Director of OTH.

Your plan is just plain stupid. I will not fly to OTH as long as you have landing fees. Your local restaurants and stores won't get my business. You won't sell me gas. Your local citizens will pay higher ticket prices if you are lucky enough not to drive out your commercial airlines.

So Theresa please go FUCK yourself!

Dammit I hate when you hold back.

My sentiments exactly.

[Rob]

My email to Theresa Cook, Executive Director of OTH.

Your plan is just plain stupid. I will not fly to OTH as long as you have landing fees. Your local restaurants and stores won't get my business. You won't sell me gas. Your local citizens will pay higher ticket prices if you are lucky enough not to drive out your commercial airlines.

So Theresa please go FUCK yourself!

Do you mind if I copy / paste and just add my name. You seem to have a way with words :

I suspect as this thread plays out a link to it may be in order as well...

[robw56]

My email to Theresa Cook, Executive Director of OTH.

Your plan is just plain stupid. I will not fly to OTH as long as you have landing fees. Your local restaurants and stores won't get my business. You won't sell me gas. Your local citizens will pay higher ticket prices if you are lucky enough not to drive out your commercial airlines.

So Theresa please go FUCK yourself!

Couldn't have said it better myself!

[OregonMaule]

My email to Theresa Cook, Executive Director of OTH.

Your plan is just plain stupid. I will not fly to OTH as long as you have landing fees. Your local restaurants and stores won't get my business. You won't sell me gas. Your local citizens will pay higher ticket prices if you are lucky enough not to drive out your commercial airlines.

So Theresa please go FUCK yourself!

Do you mind if I copy / paste and just add my name. You seem to have a way with words :

I suspect as this thread plays out a link to it may be in order as well...

Please do...Rob

[OregonMaule]

Their email page.

http://www.flyoth.com/contact.php

[OregonMaule]

Interesting...North Bend is scheduled for this Federal funding but they still want to squeeze a fee from GA pilots. It must not be enough that WE are also paying their Federal Grant!!

KOTH is on the National Program of Integrate Airport System (NPIAS) schedule to receive $13,500,000 in FAA Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants between 2011 and 2015.

[kevbert]

Robw56, I do believe you can land there for free! The dummies actually set the rates according to specific models of planes, and there is no rate specified for yours. I am astounded that their attorney let them create such an asinine rate schedule. It's blatantly unconstitutional to discriminate against people according to the model of airplane that they own. They should have specified the fee by weight, # passengers, etc. Eventually some lawyer pilot is going to get a couple of condo payments out of them.

BTW, in the article, Ms. Cook said that the people using the airport should be the ones who pay. If a 2000 lb. airplane has to pay $10 a day in parking, that works out to about 1/2 cent per pound per day. Ergo, Ms. Cook should pay $15 a day to park her 3000 lb. car at the airport.

[Zzz]

Don't fool yourself. Nothing one pilot says will make a difference. It's the hundreds of emails or letters that they receive, along with reduced traffic, that will send the real message. That's important because I'm sure other Oregon airports will be watching the outcome of this.

***WARNING: RHETORIC ******* At risk of dipping a toe in Hot Air, you also have to ask yourself if your true beliefs regarding funding of government and public facilities actually aligns or contradicts this user fee thing. I can see arguments both ways. A privately run enterprise would charge you a fee but take no subsidies from the government. A true public use facility would be FAA funded, paid for by tax dollars, and be free to use by pilots. It seems like a lot of airports occupy some territory in between, as well as being county or city land. There's a lot of talk lately about reducing government, but this airport manager seems to be trying to become self-sufficient, something to applaud. Unfortunately she picked the wrong means by which to do so, almost as if she hadn't been paying attention to anything in the aviation world in the last 10 years, and ends up a villain in the eyes of users.

I'll take my answer off the Air.

[qmdv]

Maybe robb should pay a user fee when he drops in unanounced at a private strip? Or just make him pick rocks in the fields.

Tim

[highroad]

The local pilots, myself included are a little embarrassed by this gesture. In reality, there are not a lot of small GA aircraft that frequent KOTH, but instead the ramp is usually occupied with buis jets in to play golf at Bandon Dunes. Last friday, there were 10 turbines on the ramp when I landed, one of them 737 size, but all private.

Word on the street is that gov. funding for the new tower ends this year? To be honost, I have no idea and have not followed this very closely, but sure hope that they do away with the landing fees. It has been nice to have the tower with all the big iron traffic mixing it up with the small pistons, but as stated above, they need to fund it in a different way. Had to share the runway with a coast guard c-130 yesterday, as we have a very active coast guard station on the field as well.

The airport has really come a long way and it is a great place to be based out of.

[m7flyer]

Hey Rob, It looks like Maules are free!
If I feel the need to stop there I will print a copy of the fee schedule and ask where I am.
On the good side, they do give you a $10 credit with gas purchase from local FBO, so if you buy gas they recognize your contribution to local economy.

[robw56]

On the good side, they do give you a $10 credit with gas purchase from local FBO, so if you buy gas they recognize your contribution to local economy.

Oh that's good. I'll stop in and get a 1/4 gallon

[172heavy]

My email to Theresa Cook, Executive Director of OTH.

Your plan is just plain stupid. I will not fly to OTH as long as you have landing fees. Your local restaurants and stores won't get my business. You won't sell me gas. Your local citizens will pay higher ticket prices if you are lucky enough not to drive out your commercial airlines.

So Theresa please go FUCK yourself!

Well said, well spoken, well stated!

[OregonMaule]

Probably what I said is not appropriate, but these bureaucrats make me so mad blood shoots out of my eyes.

[GroundLooper]

I wrote that I will not be supporting any north bend businesses regardless if they are associated with the airport so long as there are day use fees.

I plan on contacting the city council members as well and encourage the others to do so. Be courteous towards the council members as we don't know if they are backing the airport management or not.

[EZFlap]

Guys, I have an additional idea on this. First, I strongly support those who would protest and boycott... especially because this is an opportunity to set a precedent. There may be a lot of other airport managers lurking and looking to see if this airport gets away with it. So there is more at stake than just this one airport.

The airport manager will never let it be known she is being boycotted. She'll try to bury it or marginalize it.

A very good use of time and effort would be for Oregon Pilots Association and/or AOPA etc. to have a petition made up. Having hundreds of pilots agree with Rob's sentiments (with cleaner language) will add a huge amount of additional punch. One guy not buying gas is a message. Ten guys not buying gas is a message. A hundred guys not buying gas, and making it public, and showing that pilots all stick together while doing it... is a message that cannot be ignored.

Most importantly, the solidarity and economic power of the pilots needs to be reported by the news media, and made known by all the local airport businesses. There should be a news story offered to the local evening news and the paper, about how the pilots are boycotting, and how much the local businesses might suffer as part of it. Also, the news story should talk about how the airport is getting X million dollars and still holding the pilots hostage.

IMHO this needs to be spun up into a major thing, not just for Oregon but to get the attention of anyone in Ohio, California, Texas or Vermont thinking along the same lines.

I'll sign any petition, or put my name on any mass e-mail, or click on any online thingie, in order to support this. Some airplane-friendly computer programmer type fellow (ahem...) should figure out a way to further this using the power o' the internet.

[Zzz]

Also, there should be some distinction between landing fees, overnight tie-down fees, and camping fees. Which are acceptable and which are not?

I can remember paying an transient/overnight fee at SBP 10 years ago, didn't think much of it.