Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Customs and Immigration in Europe (and C+I where it is not published - how?)

The hundred years' war.

EGTK Oxford

i had dinner with the ceo of LFAT ..

I am sure something can be arranged

I think that their justification is that they can, because people keep flying there and paying up. Usually, this is because LFAT is used by a group of British pilots who either never fly to any of the other French airfields because of the longer crossing over water, or for whom LFAT is their first cross-channel trip and they don't know any better.

It's only when you visit elsewhere in France that you realise what unusual behaviour this is.

wsmempson

Where would you suggest as an alternative?

Bathman

It depends where you're coming from? If from Kent, then I'd probably opt for Calais. If from west of Shoreham, probably Cherbourg. Or possibly Le Havre Octeville if somewhere in between.

So I actually need to go to Angers tomorrow and will go via Cherbourg.

EGTK Oxford

When flying abroad and customs is PNR. Is filing a flight plan sufficient ? also the times in the AIP, are they local or UTC. Rob

At 98% of all european airports, ATC and customs are two different worlds, therefore an FPL does not constitute PN for customs purposes.

Times in the AIP are UTC unless clerly marked as "lcl" or similar.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Thanks, it's a pitty a lot of customs have fax numbers not email contacts. Rob

Yes; even though a lot of "young" people regard fax as dead in normal business, it continues to live in aviation.

Fax remains very handy for stuff like PNR/PPR and for getting back the vital rubber-stamped piece of paper without which it would be unwise to fly to some airports. I would never fly to Corfu for example until I had that stamped page in my hand (or on the laptop etc) because they will refuse a landing clearance just for the fun of it.

The solution is to use an email to fax service, and a fax to email service. The first is trivial; the second requires you to buy a fax number to which people can send faxes and then you get it delivered as a PDF. I have some notes here - personally I use two different services for the two but there are ones that do both. I bought a Brighton number 01273-xxxxxx for the incoming fax, for about £30/year, and it gets used for a lot of non aviation stuff also. I think you can buy geographical numbers for much less nowadays; I pay $0.70/month for another Brighton number for VOIP incoming calls (which doesn't work but that's a separate issue).

Fax is also useful for contacting airports whose published email is duff (at least 50%) and who put the phone back down as soon as they hear English (certain southern countries like doing that, though not Greece IME).

It's a very easy way to shoot off messages to all airports on a planned trip, asking to confirm opening hours, avgas, etc.

Be glad that telex is no longer used

The flight plan does not usually serve PPR/PNR due to restrictive practices / job demarcation in aviation. Arthur Scargill would feel completely at home

But aviation higher up the scale (turboprops and jets) generally uses a handling agent and the agent sorts out the PPR/PNR for you, so you don't have to mess around contacting the airport, Customs, etc. In some southern countries, the handling agent will also "lubricate" the airport management to obtain parking, etc and in Europe this is much safer than asking the visitors to pay the bribe (it's done more openly further afield e.g. Africa, Middle East, India).

Piston GA's problem is that it (understandably) doesn't want to pay for handling and this results in having to deal with these various hassles. Aviation simply evolved over many years to use handling agents to insulate the airport (whose main purpose is often not aviation but the employment of a number of locals, sometimes people known personally to the local mayor) from the unwanted customers who for some reason insist on flying in their planes...

A jet owner will just call the handling agent, file the flight plan, check weather etc, and fly.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top