Call them ramp fees, facility charges or handling fees. When you pull up to manyFBOs there’s a good chance you’ll be billed a flat-rate charge just for taking spaceon the ramp. In general, the larger the aircraft, the more you’ll pay. Most facilitiesthat collect facility fees will waive them if you oblige by buying a specific amountof fuel, which of course always works out to be more than the fee. But what if you only want to park the airplane without any help from line services, and simply walk to the other side of the airport fence? Should you still have to pay for taking space on the ramp?
No matter what, my mentality is that I never expect anything for free and that’s especially true when aviating. If I’m using the FBO’s Wi-Fi, drinking its coffee, swigging its mouthwash and using its line staff to reposition the airplane so I can get good photos and video, I have no problem paying a reasonable charge. I’ve worked the line and understand the real costs of FBO overhead. Like at hotels, I’ve been both gouged and treated fairly by the best and worst. Some FBOs just get it and they’re worth mentioning.
When we flew the Cirrus Vision Jet last fall, we set up shop for a couple ofhours on the ramp at Pentastar Aviation in Pontiac, Michigan (PTK), for somefilming. Wandering inside to find a snack machine, I was thrilled to find noshortage of quality munchie food on the counters for the taking. There was alot of it—like stuff your cargos with as much as you can fit. Even better, therestrooms were clean and overly lux. Noticing my cookie-eating grin, my colleaguePaul Bertorelli had to remind me that we were on the better side of thetracks, where fresh lemonade, pastries and granite urinals come at a price.
Pentastar says for it to “provide maximum value” (which means stocking itscounters for guys like me who mooch its food), it charges a $30 handling feefor single-engine airplanes, which is waived if you buy 25 gallons of $4.95 pergallon full-service 100LL. Light jets are billed $150 unless they take on 100gallons of Jet-A. Given the above-average level of service and quality of its facility,plus fuel prices that fall well within the average for the region, it’s toughto complain about Pentastar’s handling fees, which would be bolder yet whenyou climb out of a $1.5 million ride. But there’s a larger issue brewing and it’s all about price gouging, made worse when you pull up to an FBO ramp on a federally funded airport not needing any services. You know, bring your own ropes and come back in a few hours.I think there need to be better options and I’m not alone.
According to both AOPA and the FAA, they’ve heard from an increasingnumber of pilots who are being charged for FBO services they don’t ask for orreceive. There have also been complaints of price gouging at certain airportswith no competing FBOs, which has prompted AOPA’s initiative attempting toensure reasonable and transparent pricing at FBOs on public airports. Even theFAA has stepped in, publishing its own Q&A guidance for pilots, FBOs andairport sponsors that addresses how federally funded airports should facilitatecompetition and transparency, while promoting reasonable pricing and access.The link to the December 2017 six-page document is found here. Like most FAA guidance, be prepared to read through it a few times.
Some FBO managers I talked with are losing their minds over the mere existenceof an FAA document on the matter that, according to the agency, “is not anattempt to impose new regulations or policies on airports.” But in the document,the FAA essentially says it can review FBO/airport sponsor (that’s the tenant/landlord) leases and follow up on complaints of price gouging, while reinforcingthat it has a statutory mandate to ensure that airport sponsors comply withfederal obligations. To me, that’s a setup for more FAA intervention. Stay tuned.
To get a sense of how widespread the problem of FBO price gouging is, we’llbe launching an FBO satisfaction survey and reporting on it in a future issue of sister publication AviationConsumer magazine.
