Originally published at: Falcon Field Landing Fees Draw FAA Complaint, Federal Lawsuit
Flight schools are asking the FAA and a federal court to halt Mesa’s landing fee program.
So, if MESA has taken Federal Funds for the airport, landing fees are unlawful. If not, then landing fees are an open question. No pilot wants to see landing fees. I presume the FAA has paved the runways at MESA; but do not know for certain. If the FAA has funded repaving, the airport landing fees are out of the question. If the FAA has not funded MESA Airport repaving or any other improvements, then their proposed fees may stand. I hope not! One would think asking the FAA to repave runways is a routine task; done nearly at every US Airport. Suggesting to me the MESA Airport has no basis for collecting landing fees. Who will tell the MESA Airport to ask the FAA to repave their runways? Like most other US Airports!
Hayward Executive Airport (KHWD) in the SF Bay Area has an almost identical runway configuration and composition of T-hangars, flight schools, two full service FBOs and some aircraft repair stations. They get their money from rents charged to tenants, as well as federal grants for movement area maintenance. KHWD hosted a large number of business jets for last February’s Superbowl weekend (they even closed 28R-10L for additional parking!). I have yet to hear any discussion or proposal about landing fees. It sounds to me like the Mesa City Council is made up of anti-airport “Karens” looking for a new revenue stream by treating the airport as a cash cow. When Hayward needed to address operating costs, they raised the rents. As hangar tenants, we certainly protested. But they were raised incrementally so that it would be less painful. That said, at no time were landing fees on the table for discussion.
This is just one more sad consequence of the Phoenix area’s explosive growth over the past 60 years. We based our airplane at Falcon Field years ago. It was uncontrolled, well away from any residential areas, surrounded by orange groves. McDonnell-Douglas had a facility on the northwest side, and conducted much of the flight test program of the Apache helicopter there. There was one busy flight school, and the Champlin Fighter Museum.
Of course the orange groves, inevitably, gave way to dense subdivisions, Champlin’s collection went to Boeing Field in Seattle, FAA put in a tower, and now the neighbors are complaining about the airplane noise, which was there long before their homes were built.
Luke AFB on the west side of town is getting the same complaints. It was built during WWII, 40 miles out in the empty desert. The original residents of Sun City, after the war, were veterans, so they loved the jets overhead. But 70 years later, the (vastly expanded) Sun City residents are calling their congressman to complain about someone letting those noisy jets fly over their homes.
It is unfortunate that suburbs grow up around existing airports, populated by people who did not do their due diligent to determine whether an airport was in the vicinity. Then, they complain about the noise, file lawsuits, demand landing fees to deter airmen, and the like.
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