At 11:24 PM 5/7/2003 -0700, Jon Wright wrote: >I've never understood why so many fees and wages associated with >commercial aviation are based upon the weight of the plane. > >Take landing fees. How does a 747 cost and airport more than a 737 to handle? It might not take much more to handle the 747, but it takes more infrastructure to handle the 747. The runways have to be longer and have to support more weight per aircraft wheel. The gates that will handle the 747 need more room to park the behemoths. I suspect the taxiways need more clearance from surrounding buildings. Take the A380 (please! :-) ). Even though Airbus constrained its width and length to 80m in each direction, airports are still going to need to upgrade some of their facilities for the sheer size of the beast. If an airline could replace a couple of 767 runs with an A380 run at no additional cost from the airport, suddenly the airport is responsible for infrastructure upgrades with no corresponding increase in landing fees. Possibly one could tie landing fees to the passengers or cargo on board, but that leads to all sorts of bookkeeping nightmares, and even so, the empty weight of the A380 would still dictate some infrastructure upgrades. Nick