Fri Feb 23, 2018 2:17 pm
#1592893
How come they can do this but we can't ? - where does the funding come from ?
Public funding and/or public ownership. (Edit: kanga’s explanation is better!)
The UK government sold a lot of aerodromes off back in the day to private companies without sufficient regulation.
It happened also because UK GA representation was weak and poorly funded at the time. No disrespect intended to those who worked very hard at the time to keep things ticking.
After privatisation of core infrastructure, the dark side of capitalism is also opened.
In my opinion, light GA only manages to exist in this country today through the goodwill gestures of certain landowners / operators, some who are very much into light aviation themselves.
The plugs can also be pulled easily, and we have seen that happen.
If we don't take part in protecting GA access to infrastructure, the smaller aerodromes will be built over, the larger aerodromes will have exorbitant handling fees and awkward procedures, and airspace will be over-classified to Class A everywhere.