ATC User Fees

"Marty Shapiro" wrote in message
...
Hmmm...you were at SFO, in spite of the "effective ban"? Amazing.

The statement was that high fees "effectively ban". Since I knew in
advance that ALL fees would be waived, the issue of fees was completely
irrelevant. A fee of $0.00 nullifies both the "high" and "fees" in "high
fees".

Okay, I failed to connect those two. Sorry.

Considering how light GA is supposed to be "effectively banned", we
have a surprising number of folks even in this small group of pilots
who have flown into large Class B airports.

For some reason, you have fixated on "effectively" equating to
"completely" or "totally" despite being referred to a perfectly valid
dictionary definition (with usage example) which says otherwise. You've
also managed to drop the "high fees".

The usage example provided here doesn't come close to justifying the
statement as applied to large Class B airports. As far as dropping the
"high fees" statement, I'm not really sure what you're talking about. The
original statement made a claim only with respect to "landing fees", and
while I have not made a conscious effect to distinguish between landing fees
and other fees, accusing me of some sort of underhanded position shifting
makes no sense whatsoever.

Fees are a deterrent to landing at
an airport. The higher the fees, the more of a deterrent they are. If
you
make them high enough, you effectively (but not totally) ban light GA
aircraft unless no viable alternative exists.

You would see fewer light GA aircraft at large Class B airports, even if the
fees were zero.

Furthermore, you (and the others) insist that "effectively" doesn't mean
"actually", but you apparently refuse to explain just how many planes can be
permitted at an airport before there's no "effective ban". You've got a
great slippery-slope argument going, but when you look at small airports
with fees that also discourage light GA aircraft (or any other, for that
matter), you've either got to claim light GA aircraft are "effectively
banned" there (which would obviously make no sense), or explain what makes
those airports different from the others where light GA aircraft are
"effectively banned" (ie, what sort of light GA traffic does an airport need
to see before one doesn't consider it "effectively banned").

If you want to continue talking about this "effective ban", your first step
is to define what that means. Clearly light GA aircraft are using the
largest Class B airports in the US, so they clearly are not really banned.
Since you feel you can equivocate on the definition of "effective", you need
to explain just where you're going to draw the line. Otherwise, the
definition you're using can be taken to ridiculous limits.

Once you've defined your "effective ban", then you need to illustrate that
by showing exactly how many light GA aircraft are using the largest Class B
airports, and that that number is dramatically different from the number
that would be using those airports if there were not any fees (comparing a
large Class B airport to even a local reliever, never mind a small GA-only
airport, won't prove anything).

Only one person so far has even pretended to provide actual data supporting
his thesis, and the data turned out to be bogus. It's hardly a convincing
way to demonstrate one's point. I remain unconvinced that light GA aircraft
are "effectively banned" from any airport, due to landing fees or otherwise.

Pete