As you may or may not be aware, in the aftermath of the Shoreham airshow crash, the CAA wish to change their charges for air shows. For example, with a large show (31+ aircraft), there will be a new post-display charge of £15,000!!! With the pre-display fee, that would be a total of £20,390 - previously £2,695…
I have provided (simple!) comment to the CAA’s consultation (link below); however, as my acknowledgement email only had reference number 0039 on it, I suspect that very few others have done so.
The ACO has had a long-standing link with local airshows, so perhaps staff might feel obliged to comment to the CAA about the new proposals of exorbitant charges (pre & post display). The charges are separate from the new safety rules that may also restrict how an air show can operate. Putting the 2 together will, in my view, be the death knell for many UK airshows.
It’s not difficult, you only have to select the drop-down menu to select the document & add a relevant paragraph number - 3.1 is the scale of charges.
Correct = charges to the public will have to increase. And/or revenues raised that go to charities will be drastically reduced. Gransdens raised £60K+ last year for Children in Need.
On-going liaison with my MP & IWM Duxford Executive Director.
So ticket prices increase, and more people are tempted to stand outside the fence at possibly inappropriate places. (Yes, I know many of the unfortunate victims of Shoreham were just passing by)
Small, local shows will not be able to sustain a viable air show with such prohibitive CAA costs.
The security/safety aspects are generally easier to “police” in that land/road access is fairly specific. At Duxford last year, they announced that if queues developed on the adjacent section of the M11, the flying would have to stop until the traffic eased.
Good questions? Please make the appropriate comments via the CAA consultation link - it’s not just for the big organisations such as Duxford.
It’s very grey - there will be elements of extra administration (more caveats on display pilots, aircraft, etc, after the Shoreham accident), but there doesn’t really seem to be an breakdown of this. Likewise, from last year, air show organisers will have already had their business plan in progress for this year’s events, only to be slammed with exorbitant costs.
The CAA is a government body under the DfT. It’s had its central government funding slashed so much that it could be a B rated horror movie script. This is how it’s making its funds up. Much like councils are doing and other agencies.
Get used to it people. There’s a reason this government was voted in. We all have to take a hit here and there to save money.
Quite possibly, but these charges seem to have no concrete basis for the phenomenally high amounts.
Have the CAA produced a Regulatory Impact Assessment? It hasn’t been mentioned. Previous CAA comments about new regulations/policies have specifically mentioned that they should be “evidence based.”
It will not be “their finest hour” if, as a regulator, the number of air shows decrease…
Complete and utter Tosh! Since its inception the CAA has never been funded by central government. The current funding model is:
The CAA’s funding model
91. The CAA does not have monies voted to
it by Parliament and must instead recover its operating costs, plus a
rate of return on capital set by the Government, through charges on the
aviation industry for its regulatory services and on users of UK
airspace through the Eurocontrol en route charges system.
I will try & find the reference, but it was comparatively recently (notes from GA Symposium?). So far, it seems as if the CAA have stuck their collective fingers in the air & made a WAG (wild assed guess!) at the costs involved.
