At Bergerac, especially during week-ends, you won’t find anyone to write up your bill or take your money. What I do is write an e-mail to the port administration with my details and ask them to send me the bill. Do not remember whether I received it by e-mail or snail-mail. Then I pay by SEPA transfer.
That works at other airports in France too.
No idea whether someone with a UK bank account would be charged any substantial fees for such a fund transfer…
Edit: La Rochelle is a great place to land and fuel outside lunch hours, but make sure you keep a proof of payment for a few months thereafter because they tend to send you a second bill at the following billing cycle or the next one.
but make sure you keep a proof of payment for a few months thereafter because they tend to send you a second bill at the following billing cycle or the next one.
I strongly suggest keeping all airport receipts for 1 year especially ones from French airports, namely La Rochelle (got burnt on that one) Pontoise and Poitiers (didn’t because I kept the receipts for a year) and Dinard (they billed me after 1 year).
No idea whether someone with a UK bank account would be charged any substantial fees for such a fund transfer
It may be a particularly Brit bank thing but my “bank” charges GBP 25 for any foreign payment. Obviously if I was doing lots of them I would not have my account there…
It may be a particularly Brit bank thing but my “bank” charges GBP 25 for any foreign payment
Ouch. Sorry about that. May be because you are outside of Euro zone. Within the SEPA area transfers are free of charge.
The proper UK banks do € foreign transfers for about GBP 6, but the recipient loses another similar amount so on a payment of say €20 won’t be too happy about it. If I select the option for him to receive the full amount and I pay all the charges, it will likely cost me about GBP 10-12.
I have in the past used a friend here who has a Euro account to pay these things, but that is almost a guarantee that the airport will not credit it to the correct invoice. I had that at a couple of them.
The French airports must end up with masses of unpaid bills, due to their utterly incompetent accounting practices (e.g. Dinard billing after 1 year). Doing this, they make themselves an easy target for anybody who wants to shut them down one day.
I got a couple of “payment reminders” from Lyon Bron despite having paid on the spot by Maestro card.
The proper UK banks do € foreign transfers for about GBP 6, but the recipient loses another similar amount so on a payment of say €20 won’t be too happy about it. If I select the option for him to receive the full amount and I pay all the charges, it will likely cost me about GBP 10-12.
Have you asked for SEPA transfers? Neither your bank nor the receiving bank have any right to deduct from the sum you transfer. If you transfer €20, then €20 is what the receiver will get. Any fees must be charged separately by your bank. This works also outside the eurozone as long as the payment is in euros.
Why don’t you open a EUR bank account? Then you can do SEPA free of charge and overnight. I have bank accounts in all sorts of currencies, costs very little over here. Isn’t the UK the banking center of Europe?
Isn’t the UK the banking center of Europe?
Yes, but only if you’re dealing in gazillions. Retail banking, especially anything to do with the outside world, is surprisingly backwards in the UK. Sending small amounts to the Eurozone (or anywhere else, for that matter), is a very costly exercise. There really is no good way around that, other than opening a bank account in one of the Eurozone countries and then doing all your EUR banking via internet from there.
boscomantico 09-Apr-15 17:40 #05
Biarritz has a reputation for hitting N-regs with inspections (apparently there is a Customs officer school there) but I have no idea whether this is one of GA’s many long-lived myths.
Definitely not a myth. I’ve read so many reports (not only N-regs) about people getting ramp-checked there. To the point that it has deterred me from flying there so far.
Last Edited by boscomantico at 09 Apr 17:40
Whats involved with getting ramp checked here (EU [France] )?
Whats involved with getting ramp checked here (EU [France] )?
They mostly want to see evidence of VAT paid.
In addition they like to vacuum out (and analyse) the aircraft looking for evidence of drugs or explosives.
If the 4 Customs officers in the Cessna 182 turn up you know your are in for a good work out as
they will go through every piece of paper (and everything else) in the plane.
I had the 4 above plus 4 others who were based at La Rochelle turn the plane over completely about 5 years ago,
I had landed there in the dark and they were most displeased to be working that late, 1 hour of total stress!
In Europe all aircraft owners are expected to be treated like criminals until proven otherwise.
