Aopa Hellas

FRAPORT Greece and AOPA Hellas met on 28/04/2021 via video conference.

Present were Fraport COO Mr Maragakis and Mr Spyratos & Mr Zografos from Operations departments and AOPA Hellas President Mr. Biris and Executive member Mr Leontopopoulos.

Issues that were discussed:

• - The disproportionate, for European General Aviation (GA), charges to the GA aircraft in Greece.
• - The difficulties in availability of GA parking space at Fraport Greece airports.

AOPA Hellas presented an 18 page detailed analysis of small and regional European airports’ charges and practices along with what GA in Greece really needs from Fraport, in order to trigger the development of the “under-developed” aviation tourism. Click here to view the Powerpoint analysis by AOPA Hellas.

Fraport airports in Greece present total pilot charges (airport landing-parking and ground handling charges) per visit, which are on an average, 400% more expensive from equivalent European regional and major airports. Fraport did not disagree to this, but stressed out that:

Only 50 euros represent actual costs related to FG. All other costs are charges to GA by the Ground Handling Companies (Swissport, Skyserv and Goldair) and government taxes and the (Greek) state’s Concession Agreement with Fraport, which focuses on commercial air transport and does not have provisions for the company to make the 14 airports they operate more friendly or attractive to the GA traffic.

On the subject of many of the GA costs not being related to FG, an example was given with PPR issuance: FG has developed an easy-to-use platform and provides access to Ground Handling companies and representatives for a relatively small annual license fee. These companies, in-turn charge GA users with administration fees for every PPR request. FG is not related to any of these charges, nor it has any control. It is noted that GH companies charge the same administration fee for a small GA aircraft as for a large Boeing BBJ.

In general, Fraport Greece described that although the cost of Fraport Greece services to GA represent a very small fraction of the total cost for GA, the airport operator offers the vast majority of the infrastructure and services. Among the items, FG mentioned are the following: building facilities, infrastructure and its maintenance (e.g. runway maintenance), security services (e.g. patrols), security infrastructure (e.g. fencing, equipment), firefighting services and equipment, a PPR platform for users to find available spaces with ease, safety management system and safety training for all airport users, emergency services etc.

Fraport pointed out that Regional Greek airports are getting immense pressure from the flow of tourism during the summer months and this renders them non-comparable to equivalent size European airports. During the summer months (on average 5 months), the primary strategic aim of these airports is to serve the tourism industry of the island. AOPA presented the charges for Geneva airport, as an example of a major, busy and expensive European airport, and argued that the Geneva airport charges to light aircraft can not be smaller when compared to those of Kefalonia airport.

Fraport will try, without committing, to investigate the possibility of providing additional parking positions for GA at their airports, where feasible. They explained that they have already done this in the past, based on airport design standards as part of the certification of the airports according to strict EASA standards. They stressed out that the airports they operate have very high safety standards and this (for example) affects even the implementation of GA aircraft parking positions where apron space is limited. AOPA argued that they would like to see additional effort on the subject of parking locations, as some airports have one, two or no parking locations at all as per the AIP Greece. FG highlighted that in many cases there is misuse of GA parking positions by the users, especially when they do not cancel PPRs they do not intend to use in good time. This has the double effect that other requests by other users to park their aircraft are rejected and parking stands remain empty.

On the subject of increased Ground Handling charges at their airports, Fraport explained that they are unable to intervene into the private companies charging schemes. They did however provide some advice to AOPA like clarifications in regards to which charges relate to what services. This did help AOPA somehow to investigate further some alternate scenarios for somewhat lower charges by ground handling companies, however, no commitment for any of the issues was made, and it was agreed that the meetings with AOPA should be renewed.

[Original Text edited on 07/06/2021]