Signature publishes fees for piston airplanes - AOPA

[FlyWalt]

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/october/02/signature-publishes-fees-for-piston-airplanes

Never will I forget my FIRST and LAST experience at a Signature FBO. And it was at one of their main culprits, Asheville.

It amazes me how many people will just pay the bill and move on. My policy, with obviously unreasonable prices that were never declared, is to simply say, "No, I am not paying your ridiculous ramp fee, if it was not declared on a sign, outside of your ramp. This is a public airport and I have already paid for it through my taxes".

I absolutely hate entities who attempt to rip off the public. Especially in an industry where we can simply ditch our expensive airplanes and buy tickets on the airlines. Why support an industry if they are going to allow their players to gouge the public that supports it.

Edited October 2, 2018 by FlyWalt
Punctuation edit

[MATTS875]

It would be nice if they were able to publish airport fees on Garmin Pilot like they do for fuel prices. We landed at KLEE at 8:45Pm for an early departure the next morning. The airport staff was gone , so when we got there the next morning we were charged a $28 parking fee. The pilot that was with me was shocked at the price. I paid and left.

[toto]

21 minutes ago, FlyWalt said:

It amazes me how many people will just pay the bill and move on.

I always (maybe too charitably) assume that the high-priced FBOs work mostly on contract, and don't have much transient business. So their transient prices are crazy and even the desk staff don't know much about them. 

[Mooneymite]

As most of you are aware, Signature (part of BBA, a UK company) is buying up FBO's at an alarming rate.  Signature provides pretty good service to jets, but their charges are out-of-sight.  In my Mooney experience, the individuals working for Signature treat props okay, but the corporate attitude is:  "go away".

BBA loves monopoly situaltions.  Signature posted some pretty big numbers for BBA's financials.  I'm sure we can all be proud of that.  

[flyboy0681]

It's kind of funny, but once those Signature employees are off duty and sitting around drinking a beer along with friends, they don't have very nice things to say about their clientele. Believe me, they have much more in common with folk like us than the people walking off of $40m Gulfstream's who don't do anything but complain.

 

 

 

[Awful_Charlie]

Handling is one of those things - sometime you get great and useful service, and sometimes nothing worth having, and that seems to have zero bearing on the resultant fees. I don't mind paying when I feel I get some value for services which are helpful, but it's a shame when the value feels to be poor

Here's one of the more outrageous ones - a good service for sure, but the value is in the wrong ballpark!

[Stephen]

I don't think this does anything to offset the larger Signature trends, but I have been to them at Chicago Exec twice in the last couple of weeks and there were no fees to stay for a few hours and drop off / pick up a pax. They offered a crew car gratis both times. 

[Marauder]

I used to go to KMQS’s restaurant a fair amount until Signature took it over. They initially were charging a $10 landing fee just to go to the restaurant. The backlash eventually saw them eliminate it but not before the restaurant shutdown, presumably because of the non-ending rumors of the landing fee.

I do a fair amount of approach practice there. One afternoon the guy running the Signature desk got on the frequency (recognized his voice) and asked for my full N number. Was he trying to charge me for using the airspace?


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[jaylw314]

For comparison, at KPDX (Portland), Atlantic charges:

• $10 airport fee
• $40 ramp fee, waived for:
  • 15 gallons of fuel purchase (about $1.50/gal higher than local) or
  • Quick passenger pickup (and only if you remind them at the time)
• $20/night tiedown fee

None of these are published anywhere, although they are open about it if you call and ask.  Admittedly, the parking garage across the street at PDX charges $24/night for your car, so it's pretty close overall.

On the other hand, I can fly into KVUO (Pearson), park there for free for 2 weeks and take Lyft to KPDX for $50 round trip.

[flyboy0681]

1 minute ago, jaylw314 said:

For comparison, at KPDX (Portland), Atlantic charges:

• $10 airport fee
• $40 ramp fee, waived for:
  • 15 gallons of fuel purchase (about $1.50/gal higher than local) or
  • Quick passenger pickup (and only if you remind them at the time)

None of these are published anywhere, although they are open about it if you call and ask.

 

What it's all boiling down to is caveat emptor.

 

[gsxrpilot]

23 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

What it's all boiling down to is caveat emptor.

This... 

Unfortunately it's become a required part of flight planning. I never pick up the phone anymore to call Flight Service, get a briefing, or file IFR. But I always pick up the phone and call the destination FBO to check on fees. I do this every time even if I've been there before. At an airport like KADS in the Dallas area, the FBO's compete with each other and often change their fees. So I call every time.

[flyboy0681]

3 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

This... 

Unfortunately it's become a required part of flight planning. I never pick up the phone anymore to call Flight Service, get a briefing, or file IFR. But I always pick up the phone and call the destination FBO to check on fees. I do this every time even if I've been there before. At an airport like KADS in the Dallas area, the FBO's compete with each other and often change their fees. So I call every time.

I totally agree.

When you come to think of it, the rise of mega-FBO's was a brilliant move. They service a segment of the population that is perceived to be footloose and fancy free when it comes to money, and they capitalized on it. My only question is, why didn't I think of it first.

Chalk it up to the corporization of America and its need to drive the bottom line. At least the cookies are free.

 

 

[jaylw314]

39 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

I totally agree.

When you come to think of it, the rise of mega-FBO's was a brilliant move. They service a segment of the population that is perceived to be footloose and fancy free when it comes to money, and they capitalized on it. My only question is, why didn't I think of it first.

Chalk it up to the corporization of America and its need to drive the bottom line. At least the cookies are free.

Actually the cookies are pretty damn good, just not worth $40

[Raptor05121]

I avoid Signature like the plague- except when I went to Key West. Surprisingly, they were not TOO bad considering where they are. IIRC it was $20/night, gas was a $1/gal discount for weekends bringing it down to ~$6gal and buying minimum 7 gallons waived the $20 security fee. So 2 nights, 7 gallons of gas was ~$100. But don't expect them to wheel your airplane back to the ramp. 

[WilliamR]

Buy a few hundred shares of the stock and significantly offset your fees.  A somewhat imperfect hedge, but a hedge none the less.  Ticker is "BBA" on the London Exchange

Full disclosure, I own this stock.

William

[rbridges]

On 10/3/2018 at 11:49 AM, Marauder said:

I used to go to KMQS’s restaurant a fair amount until Signature took it over. They initially were charging a $10 landing fee just to go to the restaurant. The backlash eventually saw them eliminate it but not before the restaurant shutdown, presumably because of the non-ending rumors of the landing fee.

I do a fair amount of approach practice there. One afternoon the guy running the Signature desk got on the frequency (recognized his voice) and asked for my full N number. Was he trying to charge me for using the airspace?


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In all fairness, your girlfriend probably left divots in their asphalt.

[FloridaMan]

On 10/3/2018 at 5:25 PM, Hyett6420 said:

Looks like a good hedge with analysts predicting 361 a share.  Its at 306 at the moment.

I've been in and out of PBI for several years now. Trump has a history of suing FBOs and being beyond pissed at them from time to time. It would not surprise me if they're not somewhere on his shit list. Has anyone here read "The Art of the Deal"? Cliff notes: be patient and take advantage when it's time. When you catch someone stealing, take it back x100. I would not invest in any FBO under a Trump presidency. 

Actually, regardless of who's president right now, what I've got in the stock market is riding, but I'm not adding to it. We are heading for a major adjustment and I believe the cause will be rooted on required reserves, hedge funds and receivables listed as assets. 

[FloridaMan]

I'll go one step further and explain my thoughts on the economy as a whole. I have absolutely no direct evidence of this, but my intuition tells me that something is a bit fucky with the global economy. 

We operate on a fractional reserve banking system. While there's a little more to it, banks have to hold 10% of deposits in the vault. The rest they can lend out. So you deposit $1,000,000, the bank lends out $900,000. Someone takes that loan and buys a new Mooney. Mooney puts it in their bank account. Now the bank has $1,900,000 on the books for $1M in the vault. Expand that out, and for your $1,000,000, the bank has $9,000,000 loaned out (and is making interest on that, while paying you shit on your $1,000,000). 

In researching this, I discovered that in April of 1992, that number was changed from 12% to 10%, which increased lending by %20. I believe that the boom of the 1990s was the result of lots of available lending, and the dotcom crash was just the result of where everyone put the money they didn't know what to do with. If there hadn't been the Internet, there would've been a bubble and a crash somewhere else. Things moved slowly in the 90s when compared to today and most people would pay their debts, so those borrowing their way out were able to last a long time. 

I woke up the other day with a thought experiment. If a bank were to open several accounts and lend back-and-forth, they could inflate the amount of money they have on the books 10-fold. I thought, well, that wouldn't do them any good because they couldn't spend any of it as they'd be immediately insolvent. Then I thought, "well, what if you're publicly traded and part of your valuation is based on your assets? Would an account receivable be an asset?" I also heard something about this whole "high frequency trading" thing and hedge funds seem to be all the rage. My theory is that companies that make up these hedge funds are in some sort of lending elephant walk and there is some sort of rapid lending going on so that as soon as dollars enter the company that there's some process that's immediately leveraging them and multiplying the numbers on the books. 

[Marauder]

I'll go one step further and explain my thoughts on the economy as a whole. I have absolutely no direct evidence of this, but my intuition tells me that something is a bit fucky with the global economy. 
We operate on a fractional reserve banking system. While there's a little more to it, banks have to hold 10% of deposits in the vault. The rest they can lend out. So you deposit $1,000,000, the bank lends out $900,000. Someone takes that loan and buys a new Mooney. Mooney puts it in their bank account. Now the bank has $1,900,000 on the books for $1M in the vault. Expand that out, and for your $1,000,000, the bank has $9,000,000 loaned out (and is making interest on that, while paying you shit on your $1,000,000). 
In researching this, I discovered that in April of 1992, that number was changed from 12% to 10%, which increased lending by %20. I believe that the boom of the 1990s was the result of lots of available lending, and the dotcom crash was just the result of where everyone put the money they didn't know what to do with. If there hadn't been the Internet, there would've been a bubble and a crash somewhere else. Things moved slowly in the 90s when compared to today and most people would pay their debts, so those borrowing their way out were able to last a long time. 
I woke up the other day with a thought experiment. If a bank were to open several accounts and lend back-and-forth, they could inflate the amount of money they have on the books 10-fold. I thought, well, that wouldn't do them any good because they couldn't spend any of it as they'd be immediately insolvent. Then I thought, "well, what if you're publicly traded and part of your valuation is based on your assets? Would an account receivable be an asset?" I also heard something about this whole "high frequency trading" thing and hedge funds seem to be all the rage. My theory is that companies that make up these hedge funds are in some sort of lending elephant walk and there is some sort of rapid lending going on so that as soon as dollars enter the company that there's some process that's immediately leveraging them and multiplying the numbers on the books. 

What you are describing is exactly why laws like Sarbanes-Oxley were created.


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[FloridaMan]

9 hours ago, Marauder said:

 

What you are describing is exactly why laws like Sarbanes-Oxley were created.


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Yes, but I believe Sarbanes-Oxley addressed the approaches to fraud that were known, just like the Treaty of Versailles limited German military development following WW1, which led to the development and weaponization of the weapons that fell out of the scope of the agreement. 

[M016576]

On 10/3/2018 at 9:16 AM, jaylw314 said:

For comparison, at KPDX (Portland), Atlantic charges:

• $10 airport fee
• $40 ramp fee, waived for:
  • 15 gallons of fuel purchase (about $1.50/gal higher than local) or
  • Quick passenger pickup (and only if you remind them at the time)
• $20/night tiedown fee

None of these are published anywhere, although they are open about it if you call and ask.  Admittedly, the parking garage across the street at PDX charges $24/night for your car, so it's pretty close overall.

On the other hand, I can fly into KVUO (Pearson), park there for free for 2 weeks and take Lyft to KPDX for $50 round trip.

Which is why I always flew into TTD when I was going into that area, paid no ramp fees, got a sweet rental car through gorge winds (their fbo) and drove the last 15 minutes to down town Portland.  Shoot, the taxi in and out of Atlantic to the active could, at times, be longer than the drive from TTD to downtown....

just saying....

 

all that to say that I really hate fbo landing and parking fees for a light civil. (Although, for a jet / turbo prop it might make sense... maybe).

Edited October 5, 2018 by M016576

[gsxrpilot]

Hot Springs, AR FBO is city owned and run. $10 handling fee waived for 5 gal of fuel. Overnight parking $3/night. Enterprise and Hertz on site. Book ahead and car delivered plane side.

Just sayin... 

[Skates97]

On 10/2/2018 at 3:36 PM, flyboy0681 said:

It's kind of funny, but once those Signature employees are off duty and sitting around drinking a beer along with friends, they don't have very nice things to say about their clientele. Believe me, they have much more in common with folk like us than the people walking off of $40m Gulfstream's who don't do anything but complain.

Not Signature, but we landed in St George Sunday to have lunch with my wife's dad on our way back home. We parked and got out and the line guy came over to see if we needed anything. Very nice kid and as we chatted he pointed to the still running Challenger which he had just fueled parked right in front of the door to the FBO. He said "I don't know why those guys always have to park right in front of the door." I said "Because they're cool." He rolled his eyes and said "They're not special, all you guys are the same to me. " 

[DonMuncy]

2 hours ago, gsxrpilot said:

Hot Springs, AR FBO is city owned and run. $10 handling fee waived for 5 gal of fuel. Overnight parking $3/night. Enterprise and Hertz on site. Book ahead and car delivered plane side.

Just sayin... 

I don't think those are unreasonable fees. Naturally, the CB in me would prefer to pay nothing  

[FloridaMan]

57 minutes ago, Skates97 said:

Not Signature, but we landed in St George Sunday to have lunch with my wife's dad on our way back home. We parked and got out and the line guy came over to see if we needed anything. Very nice kid and as we chatted he pointed to the still running Challenger which he had just fueled parked right in front of the door to the FBO. He said "I don't know why those guys always have to park right in front of the door." I said "Because they're cool." He rolled his eyes and said "They're not special, all you guys are the same to me. " 

That's FBO line training 101 right there. The guy showing up in the piston single may be the chief pilot for the corporate flight department. And if he isn't, he might be friends with a few of them.