Would anyone have the latest on Annemasse in terms of landing fees and whether it is French only or not? Also, on another post I saw a link to IFR departure procedures for the field but it didn’t work. Does anyone have a brief on departing Annemasse IFR?
I’m also considering Lausanne but the lack of a nearby car rental is putting me off. I’ll be flying down IFR from Roskilde in a week’s time and need to get to Chatel in the Portes Des Soleil region. Sion is another option but I don’t really like the idea of flying down the valley in unknown (for now) weather. I had considered Bern too but the drive is a bit too far. My next leg is IFR to Calvi and would prefer an easier join and climb to the airways than the likes of Sion!
The nice thing about Annemasse is that you can use the Geneva ILS with a breakout to the left to join final of Annemasse. Very nice little French airport. Active flying community there.
What a timely question – I just flew there for the first time last week (twice). I used French one time and English the other — didn’t seem to be a problem.
The first time I landed there, as I didn’t know what runway was in use, I announced I was joining for runway 12 but then the lady in the office came on the frequency and said to use runway 30. The second time there were quite a few planes in the pattern so it was easy to figure out what runway was in use; however, they were all using French (local flying club). So, I would suggest learning the words for “12” and “30” in French just so you can recognize them.
I picked up the IFR departure procedure “flyer” in the office…here it is. I really wish these kinds of things were published more openly for airports around Europe. So many of these procedures are tribal knowledge!
I’ll post the landing fees later.
Thanks all for your comments.
Peter – I’ve read your trip report a couple of times now (very interesting, thx!) and I did get in contact with Lausanne but they weren’t willing to sort out car rental other than direct me into the town centre. noted on the Calvi parking – will take care!
Tomjinx / Aeroplus – thanks for the info. So presumably I’ll get by with English on the radio. I’ll do a bit more research on the IFR departures.
Does Annemasse have peculiar timings with AVGAS availability? OK to pay with debit/credit cards?
HighFly – that’s perfect. Thank you ever so much
noted on the Calvi parking – will take care!
I would absolutely refuse to park on that surface, even if you shut down on tarmac and push your plane there by hand, because anybody else parking there will be doing so under power and will cover your plane in the stuff
They have plenty of tarmac but when we went there (EuroGA fly-in Sep 2014) they seemed to have a policy of allowing only turboprops and twins to park on the tarmac. It should be possible to establish if there is an extra charge for that. At many airports, to get hard surface you have to go via the handling agent (a nice scam).
Lausanne has an easy bus to the city and everything is there. I would not worry about a lack of car hire at the airport. Even Le Touquet “has” car hire but most days there is nobody there…
Morgan,
Regarding AVGAS, the machine only accepts TOTAL cards, but if you don’t have one you just talk to the person in the office and they use their TOTAL card and then you pay them. A non-issue, really.
The office/airport is attended until sunset.
I can confirm that taking the bus from Lausanne airport to the city is very easy. It is the closest bus stop to a small airport that I have seen (probably a minute walk). You can hire a car from the city and go back to take your luggage if you don’t want to carry it with you.
