Looking at doing a meet-up there this coming Sunday (10th April) I emailed them to clarify their PN (due to this crazy AIP entry I am taking no chances) and got this back:
Sunday is a very busy day, we have many commercial flights and our ground staff may be too busy to bring you some assistance such as fuel.
On this Sunday, you can come before 09h00, between 14h30 and 16h30 and after 18h00 if it’s possible for you (all local times). We’ll be cheerful to welcome you at these moments.
That means it is closed on Sundays, because not many airports open early enough to reach LFRK before 0700 UTC. Anyway, who wants to get up at some ridiculous hour just for a day trip?
I wonder if it is related to this bizzare Calais policy?
It was starting to get tricky even a couple of years ago. I was given slots for vfr at wired times of day and when I was there I asked nicely to change and they wouldn’t bend. Shame as it’s a great airport.
It’s PPR 24h, no exception even from France and even for approach & go-around, flew to Deauville instead (filed Havre as alternate instead of Caen)
I am informed they have only a few flights a day at most.
I bet whoever is funding this nice jolly (local chamber of commerce?) is not aware.
Surely no longer funded by CCI? Air France & Hop & Volotea have 250k pax par year to southern destinations in France (Croatia/Greece in summer), about 4 mouvements per day on average but it’s enough for the operator to shut the whole thing down…
The lack of Radar at Caen makes IFR arrival & departure of heavy stuff very problematic, I have been stuck at LeHavre in DA40 when B737 was landing with delays at Caen, we departed and figure it out later, I have to say the AFIS at LeHavre was really puzzled, we told her: we can see on FR24 that the B737 have landed, where is our clearance 
Peter wrote:
I am informed they have only a few flights a day at most.
Today they had 6 airliner rotations. Not one of them landed or departed on time…. Ok, so today was the presidential elections, so maybe they went on a kind of intentional slow down? “Grève light” so to speak? Or possibly that is their normal operations procedure to simply deny any movements around their airliner slots.
Arrivals:
08:05 09:01 landed Figari (FSC) V72848 (A319)
08:35 09:18 landed Ajaccio (AJA) V72846 (A320)
10:30 10:28 landed Marseille (MRS) V72580 (A320)
15:15 15:29 landed Bastia (BIA) V72962 (A320)
15:25 15:22 landed Lyon (LYS) AF1674 (E190)
19:50 19:33 estimated Lyon (LYS) AF1676 (E190
Departures
08:30 09:44 departed Figari (FSC) V72849 (A319)
09:00 10:02 departed Ajaccio (AJA) V72847 (A320)
10:55 11:21 departed Bastia (BIA) V72963 (A320)
11:50 12:06 departed Lyon (LYS) AF1673 (E190)
15:40 16:10 departed Marseille (MRS) V72581 (A320)
16:05 16:13 departed Lyon (LYS) AF1675 (E190)
Peter wrote:
Sunday is a very busy day, we have many commercial flights and our ground staff may be too busy to bring you some assistance such as fuel.
On this Sunday, you can come before 09h00, between 14h30 and 16h30 and after 18h00 if it’s possible for you (all local times). We’ll be cheerful to welcome you at these moments.
This is totally proposterous and outright denial of service. Appart from that, what assistance do you need? Is this a handling obligatory airport or what?
Peter wrote:
I bet whoever is funding this nice jolly (local chamber of commerce?) is not aware.
They should be made aware of it, together with examples of similar airports who do not have the same kind of denial of service policy. As should the DGAC.
This looks very much like the Greek crazy opening hours kind of thing with a staff who is unwilling to do their job and at the same time the proposterous notion that if an airliner is on the ground GA should just get lost. IMHO, an airport which is run like this should be audited and every one of those lazy arses should have their licence shredded and sent packing to be replaced by people who actually are willing to return this airport to it’s purpose as a traffic infrastructure.
Interesting. What a joke, with that “traffic”. Still, they probably make €1k or so off that commercial stuff, which is 10x more than they would make from GA.
Unless France pays the airlines to fly there. Ryanair used to be paid by the chambers of commerce to deposit Brits at French airports. Not sure if they still get that; it was ruled illegal by the EU.
It’s not legal anymore for the airports to pay the likes of Ryan Air and those that did I believe have now been fined.
It is possible, though that their landing fee is about the same or as near as damn it as a Robin DR400 at certain airfields.
I haven’t looked into it but has Caen really said that you can’t go there on a Sunday in GA. Or is it simply saying that there might not be anyone available at particular times of the day due to refuelling commercial traffic.
It doesn’t seem to be the same wording and restrictions that Brest had when it closed to all GA traffic even based due to European leaders coming for meetings when France took over the Presidency of the EU.
Well the airport is limited on Sundays due to CAT arrivals and they have PPR 24h as per NOTAMS, I learned yesterday that they do not accept land and swap pilots or do an IFR approach, the NOTAMS says it’s ok to TnG though…it seems they have limited slots for visitors
I have landed there while ago from UK via L2K first, ATC in tower decided “to cancel our PPR” and asked to divert elsewhere at 3nm final, that was after requesting PPR from OPS by email 3 days before (we sorted customs in L2K instead, so we don’t have to deal with that dimension), I did not have much choice, I had to land there to drop my wife there and would have declared mayday, there was no way, I would have diverted on that flight as TWR suggested…
I recall being told it’s “a favour and this will be the last time”
https://www.euroga.org/forums/trips-airports/7641-ad-hoc-fly-ins/post/304883#304883
