How to Find Canadian Airport Fees

How does one discover fees and taxes charged (or lack thereof) and FBO charges at various Canadian airports? So far it's a needle-in-the-haystack groping, seemingly you must google each airport individually, but that may not reveal reality, following rabbit trails from there.

COPA is unreliable; their information tends to be very old and no links to authoritative sources. AirNav is thin gruel. A bunch of business aviation web sites pretty much repeat each other and come up short.

I'm really leery of venturing north without knowing in advance.

John Siebold

We found this site helpful. It took awhile to learn the road map but it was fairly accurate and it did save us from a large fee at a sleeper airport near a lake. Larry

http://ourairports.com/ This is a Canadian site similar to our Airnav

I agree with you John. It's next to impossible to find out all the charges until they happen. Once on a weekend I flew to Canada with a passenger. My CANPASS didn't help because of my right seater. I was "advised" by Canadian Customs to go to Mirabel CYMX to clear. Arrived at the only FBO and was charged $50 on the spot for 10 min parking. CBP didn't show up at all. Then another bill for $50 showed up in the mail three weeks later. Airport landing fee. Lesson learned.

I don't consider Whitehorse large, but I'd incur a $.67 landing fee. I can just imaging the grinding gears of bureaucracy exhausting their annual budget collecting what doesn't even equal the four bits of US postage... Prince Rupert wants you to fund their annual budget with $11.50 landing, $12 terminal fees. Prince George wants a terminal fee, apparently no landing fee for my 816kg RV-7, but -HOLD ON! - if there were a landing fee, with 7 days notice I could get a 75% discount on a training or maintenance flight.

Nothing like being backshot from ambush, eh, Vlad? The -7 has the range to overfly Canada Bellingham to Ketchikan, but my antique walnut-sized bladder is treacherous.

Approaching this differently, anyone know the situation with Abbotsford and Port Henry?

John

The Canadian Flight supplement is usually a reliable source or airport fees. If you can't purchase one, download the free FLTPlan GO app and use the downloadable one inside the app.

The first rule of Flight Club is to not talk about Flight Club.

We just wait for the bill to show up. It always does.

F1R said:

Generally, it is only the large airports like Toronto Pearson, Ottawa and Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton Int., Vancouver and Victoria that will charge light AC a landing fee.

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Nope, no landing fees in Victoria. I fly over there all the time.

For a quick check whether there are any fees or not, you can call up the airport on my fuel-tracking website, www.100ll.ca. Most (but not all) of the CFS info is there for all airports in Canada. The CFS lists in the "OPR" section (for "Operator") whether there are landing fees or not with the comment "Lndg fees". It doesn't tell you how much, but you at least know that they're there.

Thanks, Snowflake. 100LL.CA is the easiest info access so far in my rooting around. Still, a phone call to one of the FBOs on any prospective field would be proper due diligence. Though 100LL doesn't indicate "Lndg fees" for Prince Rupert, three or four layers down on Rupert's web site there is a tariff card showing landing & terminal fees.

John Siebold

Landing fees in Canada are rare if you stay away from large controlled airports.
Hamilton, CYHM, has landing fees, as does Pearson, and Billy Bishop (Toronto island airport) I do fly into Toronto Island airport as it is very convenient and the fees are no more then you would pay to park a car downtown. One must keep perspective on these fee issues.
Other then that the only other place in Canada where I have encountered fees is the Lethbridge Airport in Alberta. It is $11 bucks, and as a customs entry point, for my travels, it is not worth going somewhere to avoid it.
I am sure that you could count on fees at
Vancouver
Calgary
Edmonton
Regina
Winnipeg
Toronto
Ottawa, main airport, but Not at Rockcliff, which is a small airplane friendly spot
Montreal
etc.

Essentially all the airports that have busy airline business and are not really small airplane friendly, have fees, which would be roughly ten or fewer for the whole country!
Fuel costs are also expensive at the larger centres.
There are many small airports in Canada that you can clear customs at that do not have fees.
Please do not stay away from Canada due to perceived things like landing fees. This year, with the dollar exchange it should be your destination travel spot!

There are many small airports in Canada that you can clear customs at that do not have fees.

Halifax NS

I work at the international at Halifax NS. There are no landing fees for the light stuff that I am aware of, but you start paying as soon as you go to the FBO
There are three on the field, but one seems to be more friendly to general aviation. My son used to manage one and he didn't like dealing with private airplanes. Even with the outrageous fees they charge, he said it still wasn't cost effective and actually stopped selling 100 LL at his place.
You'd still have to rent a car to go anywhere so I'd choose one of the smaller fields like Debert, Yarmouth or several others around the region and stay clear of Halifax.

Yep, it's always a wonderful feeling getting a bill from an 'aviation unfriendly' airport. Like you, I'd really appreciate a reliable listing of municipal airports that charge. We usually rely on other pilot's experiences to know which airports to avoid.

For those crossing into Alberta choices are limited with paved airports (Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge) all being 'fee' airports, Lethbridge being the cheapest by far. There are 2 grass border AOE strips with no fees if you don't mind more rough surfaces. There are a number of other airports classed AOE-15, supposedly only available to Canpass card holders (pre-registered/screened service similar to Nexus) one being Springbank, if Customs are in a good mood they might let you clear there, no guarantee.

Airports

I have landed at 74 airports in Canada...

3 had fees. Sydney NS, Quebec City, and Toronto Island. All small and annoying but not a deal breaker.

They were big city airports and they likely put those fees out just to limit the number of annoying little planes taking up tarmac. I have heard of others not paying the bills when they arrive in the mail. Not saying that is polite, but what are they going to do really.

NOW...that is airport fees there certainly are FBO fees if you go to the wrong spot. This is no different than in the US. We have had people that lent us a van and bent over backward for free....others that wanted $20 while the plane sat for an hour while we had lunch only.

So, in Canada, I will always taxi to "the flying club" I have never had a flying club charge, they are happy to have you come by. The FBO...they are in business and need to make $$...I can respect that so I will skip it if I dont need their services or am not buying gas. Canada is a very fun place to fly, just avoid the fee airports and you will love it.

RV7ator said:

Though 100LL doesn't indicate "Lndg fees" for Prince Rupert, three or four layers down on Rupert's web site there is a tariff card showing landing & terminal fees.

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As someone else pointed out, don't confuse landing fees with FBO (or terminal) fees. But i'll check out Prince Rupert and see what's up. The CFS is pretty good about flagging landing fees if they exist, so this may be new or may be somewhere they've missed.

"Terminal fees" are sometimes avoidable if you do something like buy gas or lunch. Not always, of course. I agree, if there's any concern or doubt, a phone call to the airport manager will usually answer the question.

Tom Martin said:

I am sure that you could count on fees at
Vancouver
Calgary
Edmonton
Regina
Winnipeg
Toronto
Ottawa, main airport, but Not at Rockcliff, which is a small airplane friendly spot
Montreal
etc.

There are many small airports in Canada that you can clear customs at that do not have fees.

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No landing fees in Regina, or Saskatoon, I am pleased to report, and both have customs

Snowflake said:

"Terminal fees" are sometimes avoidable if you do something like buy gas or lunch. Not always, of course. I agree, if there's any concern or doubt, a phone call to the airport manager will usually answer the question.

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Do we have an app for that?

CDN Landing Fees

"Is there an app for that"...

Yep, Foreflight. When flight planning to unfamiliar airports, I always go to the airport AND FBO comments section. While everyone is great at adding positive comments, most will also put constructive comments on fees or poor service. We even used this leverage once to convince one CDN airport that Rick mentioned to improve services and hopefully suspend fees. Not saying that this would work everywhere, but ...

Russ
RV-9A
C-GTDP

Ralph Inkster said:

Yep, it's always a wonderful feeling getting a bill from an 'aviation unfriendly' airport. Like you, I'd really appreciate a reliable listing of municipal airports that charge. We usually rely on other pilot's experiences to know which airports to avoid.

For those crossing into Alberta choices are limited with paved airports (Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge) all being 'fee' airports, Lethbridge being the cheapest by far. There are 2 grass border AOE strips with no fees if you don't mind more rough surfaces. There are a number of other airports classed AOE-15, supposedly only available to Canpass card holders (pre-registered/screened service similar to Nexus) one being Springbank, if Customs are in a good mood they might let you clear there, no guarantee.

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I have cleared customs at Lethbridge and wasn't charged a fee.

Are the fees new, or not charged for a transient customs visit?