Thread: Avgas is cheap
View Single Post
  #61  
Old March 11th 04, 04:30 PM
Skyking
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message ...
"Paul Sengupta" wrote in message
...
"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message
...

"Paul Sengupta" wrote in

message
...

"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message
news
"Julian Scarfe" wrote in message
newsZX0c.2199$GQ.2184@newsfe1-win...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
link.net...
How much of that $4.55 is the FBO making? Here in the US, the

FBO
markup
is
much larger than the refining margin.

I don't know. I imagine it's not much. But either way, the point

is
simply
that the much smaller aviation market here for Avgas drives up

prices.

Not to mention the tax man.

The point was the difference in cost after you take away the tax.

Which was never clarified.


This was the "$4.55" which was worked out that a gallon of avgas
costs here in the UK after removing the tax. I was under the impression
that about 50% was tax, which would make about half of our $6.57
per US gallon the cost of the fuel or $3.29. That doesn't seem so
different the some of the costs in the US.


The US average right now is $2.63 and runs from about $1.85 up to around
$4.00 at the hoity toidy FBO's.

http://www.airnav.com/fuel/report.html - naturally, Alaska is rather high
time time of year; they have to melt the fuel before they can pump it. :~)


The point being that, according to Julian, under
UK capitalism, gas was $7 something a gallon, but under US capitalism

it's
about $2.50-3.00.


The point was the cost after tax. We know it's highly taxed,
it's the underlying cost difference that was the point. How much is
seller margin, how much is oil company revenue, which is what you
reply to below.

Now, how much do various FBO's pay in rent to the government authority

in
charge of their airport? Any one know? Julian speculated on various

reasons
for the pump price, but never (that I saw...I don't read EVERY post)

took
into account the OVERHEAD costs of the FBO.


Well, the airports are private concerns over here, not government owned
but it's the same point, how much they have to spend in overheads.


Here very few airports that sell fuel are privately owned. FBO's then must
pay all their normal overhead plus rent and other fees. They miss out on
direct property taxes and acquisition costs, but government has no incentive
to monitor and minimize costs, something a "for profit" firm must do. OTOH,
government can acquire land for an airport under our rule of "eminant
domain", something a private firm can;t do unless they have good political
connections (Wal-Mart, for example, or sports franchise owners).


The larger airports charge large rents to the clubs, the smaller ones

could
all be part of one concern, so parking/hangarage, landing fees and selling
fuel is what keeps the airfield going. Some places here try to attract
people
in by selling the fuel as cheap as they can, but there isn't a huge
difference
generally, maybe between £0.92 and £0.96 a litre in the places I buy my
fuel. I know other places charge over £1 a litre, but I haven't been to
one of those places.

100LL is $2.34 a gallon at Durango, CO.

Skyking