Reservations and Fees Apply to ALL GA Aircraft

The Arizona Pilots Association set forth in a communique that the entirety of Las Vegas, Nevada’s general aviation airports—Harry Reid International (LAS), Henderson Executive (HSH), and North Las Vegas (VGT)—will require all general aviation aircraft arriving during the time period spanning 14 through 20 November 2023 to secure reservations/prior permission and pay a $3,000 arrival fee.

The exhobitant fees are reportedly attributable to the Formula 1 events occurring over the antecedent dates.

Erected upon a colossal construct of money and ostentation, Formula 1, in 2023, surpasses horse racing as the sport of kings. However, unlike horse racing, polo, yachting, and similarly-stuffy highbrow pastimes in which the world’s contingent of monied folk engages, Formula 1 commands a massive international audience. In 2021, the sport reported a global television audience of 1.55-billion viewers.

The nexus of popularity, pomp, and overhead occasions stratospheric attendance fees. Tickets for the upcoming Las Vegas Grand Prix range from a minimum of $195-per-person for the 15 November opening ceremony, to $950-per-person for the 16 November qualifying heats, to $3,487-per-person for good 18 November, race-day seats. Race-day track-side seats can be had for a cool $5,790 apiece.

While event pricing, to include concessions and merchandise, is pretty much obscene, it’s congruous with a sport in which all ten competing teams’ season budgets are capped at $140-million and racecars range in price from Haas’s economical $12-million machine to Mercedes’s $15-million Silver Arrows. Viewed through a broader lens, the monies raked in by its involvement in Formula 1, expenses notwithstanding, compelled Ferrari to spend $3.9-billion fielding its 2023 team.

Whether or not the preceding constitutes reason or rationale for the Vegas airports’ coordinated over-pricing of GA pilots and operators is a matter of opinion. What can be stated with certainty, however, is that the $3,000 fee is non-refundable, and that PPR reservations will not be completed until it’s paid in full. Moreover, LAS, per NOTAM, will require PPR for all GA traffic between 05 October and 13 December—dates inclusive.

Opponents of the PPR/fee scheme have argued, persuasively, that the practice violates federal grant assurances insofar as all three Las Vegas airports receive U.S. taxpayer funding. The acceptance of such funding requires, ostensibly, the facilities to remain open and non-discriminatory to all users.

However, all three Las Vegas-area airports are operated by Nevada’s Clark County—as are the FBOs at HND and VGT. Ergo, a growing number of disgruntled Part 91 operators and pilots have taken to alleging the $3,000 “arrival tax” is, in fact, a county fee.

Online commenter Racerx wrote: “The whole thing is a boondoggle between F1 [Formula 1]and the county/city, which as of two-months ago were still negotiating who was going to pay for the improvements the City had to make to get the race in the first place. City re-paved the course. They want F1 to pay the full $80-million it took ...which, until recently, nobody knew what the total cost was going to be. F1 wants the county to pay half that. F1 argued the infrastructure improvement will remain there long after F1 is gone. F1 was wanting a $1500-per-head licensing fee to every hotel or club for any spectator watching the race Verstappen is going to win anyway.”

Racerx concluded: “This is a money grab by the county to bilk the F1 support staff and entourage to offset their own cost.”

By way of further insult, the PPR/fee cycle is slated to repeat itself in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area during the week of Super Bowl LVII—07 through 12 February 2024.

FMI: www.formula1.com