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

Kapuskasing Airport joins Sault Ste Marie and Edmonton City Centre Airport in recently removing their landing fees on private aircraft.

The vast majority of airports in Canada do not charge 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.

Airports that do eliminate the landing fees find 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 the COPA Guide to Public Airports 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.