The COPA Guide to Public Airports

Where would aviation be without airports? Airports are the “home” of aviation right across the country – home to airplanes, pilots, AMEs and AMOs and home to flying clubs, COPA Flights and many other people, businesses and organizations. Airports are where aviation happens. Aviation wouldn’t exist without them.

COPA regularly gets requests from airport operators and also from municipalities for information and advice on running public airports. This may seem odd since COPA is an association of airplane owners and pilots, and not of airport operators, but it is appropriate for several reasons.

Firstly, our members spend a lot of time at airports and have a lot of information on what makes a good airport. Secondly, many of our local chapters, the COPA Flights, are involved in managing or operating airports and aerodromes. In fact several of our Flights own airports. Thirdly, some of the most successful public airports in Canada are run by professional airport managers who are also pilots and active members of COPA. The Association has a lot of expertise in its ranks and these members have not been shy about passing on the secrets of their success over the years. This book has been written with a lot of input from that third group.

Scope Of This Guide

This COPA Guide is designed to give you some basic information about successful airports – what makes them successful, how they can be best run and managed to attract and keep all sectors of aviation. It collects much of the wisdom and expertise from some of the best airport managers and some of the most successful airports in Canada.

This COPA Guide is not designed to tell you everything you need to know to run an airport. That is a huge subject, covering everything from the CARs to snow plow maintenance and it is best covered in various specialized (and much thicker) books than this!

Suggestions for improvements to this COPA Guide are welcome! COPA updates and rewrites its COPA Guides on a regular basis to keep them up to date and relevant. Send your suggestions for improvements to benefits@copanational.org.

NOTE

This guide contains information of a general nature only. It should not be considered a definitive document on airports or federal jurisdiction. Use of this guide does not make COPA responsible for legal action taken against you. Individual circumstances involving aerodromes and the law vary greatly. For information that applies to your individual circumstances consult an aviation lawyer.

Note on Links: Blue links in this COPA Guide will lead you to external webpages and places within the Guide itself. Green links will take to you pages in the “Members Only” section of the COPA website. Your membership number and last name all in capital letters are required for access to these pages.

Successful Airports

Successful airports are easy to spot. They have air traffic – people use them a lot. This doesn’t mean that they necessarily have scheduled air service, although that is a nice addition to any airport.

Successful airports also tend to have services – fuel, aircraft storage and maintenance may all be available. Successful airports do not have to be big to succeed.

Successful airports are a boon to the communities that they serve because they are transportation infrastructure, just like highways, roads, and sidewalks.

Perhaps we should start out by defining what is meant by “a successful airport”. In surveying airport operators there are a wide variety of opinions on this subject. Most airport operators agree that the key element is that a successful airport provides the services needed in its community. This can take many forms:

ü A facility to allow medevac flights to take sick and injured members of the community to distant hospitals

ü A facility to bring forest fire-fighting aircraft into the community when they are needed

ü A facility to bring business and commerce into the community

ü A facility for courier operations – for moving mail and packages into and out of the communities, including banking support services

ü A facility to bring tourists and visitors to the community to spend their money visiting the local sights, staying in local hotels and eating in local restaurants and thereby greatly contributing to the local tax base through those businesses

ü A port-in-the-storm for aircraft in need of a place to land when the weather deteriorates

ü A base for agricultural aviation to provide crop spraying, pest control and other services to farmers and residents

ü A base for flight training so that people can learn to fly in their own community

ü A base for charter operations to carry people and goods in and out of the community

ü A needed adjunct for an industrial park, providing just in time delivery for manufacturing and to delivery company executives with a minimum of delay.

ü A facility for population evacuation in the event of a natural disaster in the area

ü A facility to bring in disaster and relief supplies when a natural disaster strikes the area

ü A facility for scheduled airline service to bring business into the community and goods and services out

ü A base for Search and Rescue (SAR) operations to be carried out from – both for Canadian Forces SAR aircraft and CASARA resources

ü A recreational facility for local residents to use and for pilots to fly from

ü A focal point for community gatherings and events

ü A destination for school field trips, Scouts, Cubs and Air Cadets

ü Your community’s link to the outside world!

Airports Are Not Big Business!

Airports are transportation infrastructure, but in some communities in Canada there have been attempts to treat them as if they are “Big Business” in themselves.

The difference is important. Communities that believe that their airport is “Big Business” have different expectations. These often include:

ü The airport should be self-supporting financially, just like a commercial shopping mall, factory or shoe store

ü That the airport should be taxed as a commercial venture based on its occupied space and land footprint, including the runways, taxiways and in-field space

ü That the airport should bring goods, services, visitors and commerce into the community at no cost to the community

Often this belief has been brought about because many local airports were originally built, run and paid for by the federal government. Then, with the Transport Canada National Airports Policy of the early 1990s, these facilities were transferred to the local community for a nominal amount.

The local municipal government often accepted the airport from the federal government only with the understanding in the community that the airport would not cost local taxpayers anything and that local taxes would not rise as a result. In the case of some small number of airports this could be done, but a recent federal government small airports study found that in the majority of cases this was a false expectation and many of these transferred airports are suffering because of a lack of financial support.

More enlightened communities realize that airports are not “Big Business”, they are transportation infrastructure and need to be treated like any other form of transportation infrastructure – roads, sidewalks and highways. Nobody expects roads and sidewalks to be self-supporting!

The role of all transportation infrastructure is to act as economic generators and bring business into your community – they are not “Big Business” themselves!

There are effective ways to generate revenue from airports and some smaller airports can be self-supporting even without airline service. We will discuss some ways that enlightened communities and successful airports do generate revenue in a progressive fashion from airports later in this guide.

The Economic Impact of Airports

Studies done have shown that even modest-size airports can be huge economic generators in their communities. The COPA website has six complete studies that illustrate how much business and prosperity airports can and do bring to a community.

You can use these studies in your community to show the enormous positive impact of smaller airports and how the benefits greatly outweigh the costs to a community.

One of these studies looks at Calgary airports and shows that in 1997, the Calgary area corporate and general aviation communities contributed:

ü 1534 full-time jobs

ü $69.2 million in annual labour income

ü $176.5 million in operations & maintenance expenditures

ü $36.8 million in annual tax base, including $3.1 million paid in municipal taxes

ü $310.4 million in gross revenue activity

When indirect and induced forms of economic activity are included, this sector contributed:

ü 4938 ful1-time jobs

ü $207.5 million in annual labour income

ü $337.9 million in value-added GDP activity

The study of the Nelson BC airport shows that in 2001 even this small-sized community airport has a total economic output of $10.7M, 41 fulltime jobs and total employment income of $1.7M.

The study of Springbank Airport near Calgary, done in 2004, shows that even this smaller airport had a total economic impact of $100M on the local area.

The 2007 study of the Oshawa Airport illustrates how far too often municipalities focus on only what they are putting into an airport and not what is coming back to the community. In Oshawa's case, local government City puts in about $140,000 last year. City councillors were very surprised to learn that the airport generated $2 million in taxes alone and the total financial impact was almost $58 million. Not a bad return on investment.

These studies clearly show that airports are not “Big Business”, but that they do contribute greatly to the community, like any other form of transpiration infrastructure.

The National Airports Policy

Transport Canada introduced the National Airports Policy in July 1994. The fundamental tenets of the policy were that:

ü TC is not going to run airports anymore

ü Local communities are best positioned to run airports.

The policy states:

“Locally-owned and operated airports are able to function in a more commercial and cost-efficient manner, are more responsive to local needs and are better able to match levels of service to local demands.”

Research done by TC since the policy was adopted has shown that the main effect of the policy has been “municipal downloading”. The money that TC used to put into airports across Canada now has to come from local taxpayers instead. The policy has clearly been a disaster for many smaller airports because local government has to find a way to fund the shortfall.

The National Airports Policy was introduced by then Transport Minister Doug Young. In January 2003 the Globe and Mail quoted Young, as saying that he regretted handing control of Canada's airports over to the regional agencies. He is quoted as saying that the National Airports Policy was the worst decision of his career.

From COPA’s perspective, traveling across Canada and dealing with complaints from members and airport managers alike, it is clear that the National Airports Policy has been a failure for most airports. Municipalities, aviation businesses, pilots and local citizens have to find solutions, but after several years of trying, options are running out. In fact, the transition funding received from the feds as an enticement to taking over the airports has run out at most of the airports, thereby exacerbating the problems. It is not all bad news though, because some communities have found models that work, others clearly haven’t.

Perhaps one of the largest problems created by the National Airports Policy is that it has left the future of many airports around the country in the hands of local politicians and municipal officials who often have little experience or expertise in aviation and running airports and who start from the premise that airports are “Big Business” and must therefore pay for themselves. In addition, decisions are being made without considering the effects on the surrounding airports or indeed how the decision affects the national transportation infrastructure.

Transportation Infrastructure Comparisons

So how do municipalities treat airports and how should they treat airports?

As mentioned, airports are transportation infrastructure, just like roads, highways and sidewalks. In most cases airports should not be treated as “special cases”, they should be treated like other similar infrastructure.

In assessing how to fund your local public airport these are useful questions to ask:

ü How is other transportation infrastructure treated in your community? Is it a community resource or a business?

ü Who or what agency is responsible for the planning and maintenance of other transportation infrastructure in your community, like roads, highways, and sidewalks?

ü How are other forms of transportation infrastructure funded in your community? Are roads, highways, and sidewalks funded from taxes or from user fees or a combination of both?

ü Would your community consider having private companies run the roads, highways and sidewalks and charge user fees to break even or make a profit?

ü What would be the impact on your community if there were fees to use your roads, highways or sidewalks?

Does the model used currently for funding roads, highways, sidewalks and other transportation infrastructure work in your community? Does it attract businesses to locate in your community or drive business away? Does it attract residents to your community where they buy homes and pay taxes? Does it attract visitors and tourists to your community?

The Question of Fees

The question of fees is one that seems to polarize the airport management community. There is no doubt that operators of large (over 12,500 lbs) commercial aircraft expect to pay fees at airports. All airlines build these fees into their ticket structure and essentially charge the airport fees back to the members of your community who fly with them. That is expected.

When dealing with the subject of landing fees on small private aircraft airport managers have been divided until recently. Some airports have conducted experiments over the last few years to see if they can raise money by charging fees on private aircraft, while others have avoided that course of action.

The following article shows the results of these experiments by one of the first airports to introduce a landing fee on small private aircraft.

Sault Airport and Landing Fees

Some years ago the Sault Ste Marie airport introduced a $12.50 landing fee for all piston-engined aircraft, regardless of weight. The fee quickly drove away light aircraft traffic in large numbers as Canadian and visiting US private pilots found much cheaper alternative airports. At the time of the imposition of the fee COPA appealed to the airport authority to drop the fee but the airport authority left the landing fee in place.

Over the years many meetings were held between COPA and the airport authority to address the problem of the landing fee and the loss of business that resulted.

In December 2004 the President of the Sault Ste. Marie Airport Development Corporation, Doug Lawson, announced a change in policy for the airport. He announced that the landing fee for all piston aircraft below 2000 kg (4416 lbs) was reduced to $8 and would be waived entirely if the aircraft buys any fuel at all.

Lawson confirmed that the airport wants to bring back the volume of light aircraft traffic that they used to have at this geographically important airport.

Lawson also stated that it has become clear in the last few years that landing fees for small private aircraft are no longer viable as sources of airport revenue across Canada. He noted that they have the effect of reducing net revenue at airports, not increasing it.

The move is part of a larger plan to rationalize fees to better reflect costs at the airport and includes fees for parking as well. Parking fees for piston aircraft under 2000 kg are now $8 per night with the first 6 hours free.

Lawson confirmed that discussions with COPA over the years about the fees at Sault Ste Marie played a key role in the new fee structure.

Lawson expressed hope that the increased traffic that the new fee structure brings would also bring a demand for more aviation services at Sault Ste Marie. This could result in more choices for aircraft fuelling, maintenance and hangarage, if demand warrants.

COPA wishes to congratulate the Sault Ste. Marie Airport Development Corporation on its foresight in establishing this progressive fee schedule. Pilots are encouraged to make use of the airport and show the Development Corporation that the decision to lower fees was the right one to make.

As this Guide went to press, it was still too early to see the results of the revised fee structure but COPA is confident that traffic will return to the airport as the word spreads that they are GA-friendly in the Sault.

Complete information on the airport, including complete fee schedules, can be found at www.saultairport.com or on COPA’s Places to Fly.

Hamilton Airport and Landing Fees

This letter from COPA President Kevin Psutka shows a typical situation when a landing fee is imposed on small private aircraft at a regional airport:

1 December 1998 File: 2.10.5(kp98125)

Mr. G. R. Hutchison

Managing Director

Hamilton International Airport

9300 Airport Road

Mount Hope, ON

L0R 1W0

Dear Mr. Hutchison:

At our meeting earlier this year, we discussed the potential impact of your landing fee on private aviation. I stated that private aircraft pilots are sensitive to landing fees and that a $12 fee would dissuade a significant number from visiting your airport and the community. We disagreed regarding the affect that the fee would have on movements at your airport but we did agree that we would see over time whether a $12.00 landing fee would be accepted by the flying community, as reflected in the movement statistics.

I recently received a statistical report, current to the end of August 1998, from Transport Canada for all airports with towers in Canada. Of particular interest are the private aircraft itinerant movements; flights that typically generate revenue for the airport in aircraft services and food sales as well as revenue for the community from taxis, car rentals, hotel accommodations and other expenditures when pilots and their passengers visit the community for business or pleasure. I graphed a comparison of private aircraft itinerant movements for 1997 and 1998 nationally (Figure 1), at Hamilton (Figure 2) and I also looked at the performance of neighbouring airports at Kitchener (Figure 3) and London (Figure 4) to see how the region is performing.

Private aircraft itinerant movements across Canada are up over 1% overall from 1997. Neighbouring airports at Kitchener and London are experiencing a more positive trend with increases of 14% and 16% respectively. At Hamilton, the year started out well with a healthy improvement over 1997 but by March, about the time that your fee was introduced, a significant decline began in comparison with 1997. Is it coincidental that the decline coincides with the introduction of a landing fee?

Private pilots are electing to go elsewhere. As a result, your airport and the local community are losing significant business. Our research indicates that occupants of itinerant private aircraft spend on average $200 in fuel and food purchases on a stopover at an airport and over $450 when staying long enough to visit the local community. Even if one looks at this conservatively and assumes that had the fee not been in place the performance at Hamilton would have been the same from March until August 1998 as in 1997, and if one assumes conservatively that $300 is spent per itinerant aircraft, Hamilton airport and the community has given up at least $323,000 in revenue between March and August of 1998. If Hamilton had experienced the same growth in movements as London from March to August, that would represent an additional $268,000 in revenue to the airport and community. This is in comparison to an estimated $66,900 taken in from landing fees from itinerant private aircraft during the period of March to August.

From the letters that COPA continues to receive, the fee is still capturing pilots who do not know about it until they receive a bill some time after the flight. They are unanimously saying that they will not return to your airport both because of the fee itself and the fact that is imposed with no advance notice as would be available, for example, through a notice in the Canada Flight Supplement. So, you can expect that as the word spreads and pilots learn by experience of your fee, private aircraft itinerant movements will continue to decrease at Hamilton despite that fact that nationally, and more so regionally, the movement trend is up.

I believe that it is short-sighted to focus on a landing fee to raise revenue. Your airport has lost aircraft services revenue, and the region has lost taxi fares, car rentals, hotel accommodation, restaurant and other revenue from business and tourist pilots far in excess of the landing fee revenue. I believe that the statistics prove my assertion earlier this year that private pilots are very sensitive to landing fees. I urge you to consider the statistics that illustrate clearly that a landing fee is hurting Hamilton Airport and the community it serves. Rethink the fee and decide in favour of supporting a healthy Canadian private aviation. By copy of this letter I am also urging your Regional government to consider the net affect that your landing fee is having on the community.

Yours truly,

Kevin Psutka

President and CEO

Attachment: Private Aircraft Itinerant Movements

Cc: Mr. Terry Cooke, Chairman, Region of Hamilton-Wentworth

Mr. Eric Grove, COPA Flight 19

President, Airport Managers Council of Ontario

President, Canadian Airports Council

The Honourable David Collenette, Minister of Transport

Mr. Art LaFlamme, Director General Civil Aviation

COPA Board of Directors

Private Aircraft Itinerant Movements

(statistics provided by Transport Canada Civil Aviation Statistics Group)

More information about Hamilton Airport can be found on COPA’s Places to Fly.

Edmonton City Centre Eliminates Landing Fees for Small Private Aircraft

Edmonton City Centre Airport eliminated their landing fees and landed seat fees on small private aircraft on January 1^st 2006, noting that they were moving to different economic model. In this case that involved enhancing airport land lease revenues by encouraging light aircraft to fly in and use the businesses leasing land on the field, rather than charging fees to the light aircraft which chase them away and watching land lease values drop to zero as a result.

Their press release says:

“Small, privately registered aircraft using Edmonton City Centre Airport (ECCA) get a break on landed seat fees and aircraft landing fees starting Jan. 1, 2006.

The landed seat fee of $15 per seat will not apply to privately registered aircraft with six seats or fewer. Aircraft landing fees will not apply to privately registered aircraft with four seats or fewer.

“We have eliminated these fees to enhance access to Edmonton City Centre Airport, which is a key facility for small, private aircraft in the Edmonton region,” says Edmonton Airports (EA) President and CEO Reg Milley, who marked his first year with EA on Feb. 1, 2006.

The elimination of the landed seat fee and aircraft landing fees for small, private aircraft is also expected to enhance the business environment for the 90 businesses located at ECCA.”

For details on all 2006 ECCA fees, visit their website or see COPA’s Places to Fly.

Kapuskasing Airport Drops Landing Fee

The Town of Kapuskasing has joined a number of Canadian municipalities that have removed landing fees on private aircraft using their airport. The landing fee on private aircraft had been $18.46.

Airport Manager Yvan Brousseau said the matter was raised by local pilot Peter Barbour of COPA Flight 120 Kapuskasing. Brousseau looked at the fees charged by the other airports in the area and then discussed the issue with the Mayor, who approved the new fee structure.

Effective September 1, 2006 landing fees at Kapuskasing Airport are only is applicable to jet and turboprop aircraft only as is the minimum parking fee of $14.50.

Kapuskasing Airport joins Sault Ste Marie and Edmonton City Centre Airport in recently removing their landing fees on private aircraft. With the vast majority of airports in Canada not charging landing fees to private aircraft those few that do have found that their private aircraft traffic levels have dropped off to near zero in the face of the competition. Those that do eliminate the landing fees find that their revenues from fuel sales, land leases to aviation companies, money spent by visiting pilots in the community and other revenues more than make up for the few landing fees they collected.

Peter Barbour and COPA Flight 120 used information from this COPA Guide to help convince the municipality to remove the fees. Updated information about the Kapuskasing Airport can now be found on COPA’s Places to Fly, including Peter Barbour’s photos of the airport and its facilities.

Oshawa ON, during the Canadian Aviation Expo 2002

The 21st Century Reality About Fees on Small Private Aircraft

Here are what airport managers who have been through the local debates and experiments with landing fees on small private aircraft have told COPA:

1.    Ultimately the decision to have landing and other fees should be a business decision made by the airport operator, based on good market research. Airports do have a right to collect fees if they decide it is the best course of action to do so.

2.    If the airport has fees they must be widely advertised so that consumers can make a choice as to where to fly. Ensure that any fees you have are clearly posted on the airport website, indicated in the Canada Flight Supplement and on the airport’s user-editable page in Places to Fly. Legal opinions indicate that unadvertised, unexpected fees are uncollectible under Canadian law.

3.    In principle, private aircraft should be charged the same fees that private automobiles are charged in the community. If cars pay tolls to use the municipal streets in the community then it is appropriate to charge private aircraft the same fees. If cars are not charged fees then private airplanes should not be charged fees.

4.    Canadian pilots are very sensitive to fees and will avoid them by going elsewhere whenever possible.

5.    The vast majority of places to land in Canada do not have landing fees on small private aircraft and so any airport that does charge a fee can easily be avoided.

6.    US pilots HATE fees and usually express deep moral opposition to them. They will avoid any community that has landing fees of any amount, so imposing fees will drive flying US tourists away in droves.

7. In the US pilots pay a tax on aviation fuel which goes toward funding local airports. In Canada pilots also pay a tax on aviation fuel but it goes into federal government general revenue and not toward funding local airports. This is a major reason pilots consider landing fees for small aircraft to be unacceptable.

8. A community can easily lose $500 in hotels, meals, taxicabs and fuel sales all for a $4 landing fee. That is a lot of support to local business and a lot of tax money that could be contributed to the community, all lost for a landing fee.

9. The end result of imposing fees on private aircraft is almost always a drastic drop in traffic. Airports like Hamilton have seen a huge reduction in GA movements due to a $12 fee. Consequently any GA service industries (fuel dealers, avionics shops) at the airport will go out of business and the employment they provide in the community will be lost, along with the airport lease payments they were making and the taxes paid on homes, etc. The negative ripple effect of fees far outweighs the meagre income they provide.

One of Canada’s more out-spoken airport managers had this to say about the issue:

“Fees on General Aviation aircraft are a cop-out and do the whole airport industry a disservice. It just shows a lack of creativity. Anyone can slap a landing fee on small airplanes and think they have solved the problem of running an airport, but it doesn’t work in the long run.”

- Brett Binnie, Wetaskiwin Airport Manager, 12 September 2002

It is not hard to see why many airport CEOs have pronounced that the concept of charging landing fees on small private aircraft has been a failure in Canada.

How Airports Can Be Funded

So if charging fees on small private aircraft has so clearly failed in Canada does this mean that local taxpayers must pick up the bill for the local airport or else close it?

The answer is clearly “not at all!” There are several models of very successful community airports in Canada that operate on a break-even basis without drawing on the non-airport taxpayers.

After looking at what hasn’t worked, the next section of this Guide will look at what has worked and why it has worked at small airports around Canada.

Successful Models

There are lots of small and regional airports that have found successful funding formulas in Canada and manage to break-even each year. The managers of these airports are clear where their success lies:

18th Edition – January 2008

18^th Edition – January 2008