Abolition of customs airfield requirement for Germany?

derek wrote:

I know you were joking, but isn’t it still so that you can only land at designated airfields in Germany? i.e. You can’t land in somebody’s field, even with their permission.

I know someone who got permission to use a local field owned by a friend as a landing strip. Took some effort but was approved by the BR Muenster, if I remember correctly.

https://ec.europa.eu/assets/sg/report-a-breach/complaints_en/

the real massive danger is when flying into an area where your aircraft is not in free circulation

I have seen that term many times, including currently in the UK.

Am I right that it means simply whether import VAT has been paid? The thread on that is here. I am not going to hijack this thread but most GA planes do not carry that document (C88, basically) because they never got one. A huge sleeping dog for GA pilots.

with German customs have been Swiss aircraft as they made them pay VAT on the aircraft value imported which in a legal sense was not a fine so different criteria on what was fair did apply

This notorious case

https://ec.europa.eu/assets/sg/report-a-breach/complaints_en/

Right. I am gonna file a complaint about, ahem, France. That is a whole country, and quite a big one, last time I looked Chances of getting anywhere are precisely zero. And if you get busted and need some help, a lawyer who can read well enough to even understand this will be €5k a day.

Steve6443 wrote:

Hi Frans, how can I ensure, if I fly to LFSB, that I stay on the International terminal? I am intending flying there soon and would be interested to know.

As long as you don’t cross the gate into the General Aviation Centre (GAC), north of the main apron, where taxiways Alpha and Foxtrott come together. The Basel flying school and aeroclub are located there as well, including some private Swiss GA planes. The tower tends to send you there, especially if they ask “say parking” and you say “general aviation” or “Basel”. On the official ground movements chart, the GAC is marked as a “customs limit” area. This is the only little notice on this dreadful trap. You can let “GAC Basel” do the handling of course, and they will automatically send you the customs form upfront, but they are also terribly expensive. 120 CHF handling + 15 CHF per hour (!) parking fee (only first 2 hours free of charge) + 42 CHF landing fee for only 1000 kg MTOW.

However, if you call the airport itself for PPR upfront, ask them where to park and say you don’t need special handling. This could be the main apron, or somewhere else. Then you can decide inside the terminal, if you either wish to exit to the French or Swiss side, which doesn’t require any further bureaucracy.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

BTW, Austria appears not to comply with the new regulations either if I understand it correctly, as they still refuse direct flights to non-customs airfields according to the article posted above.

Correct. On the other hand, quite some Austrian airfields do have customs on PNR/PPR basis. Hohenems, Reutte, St. Johann, Zell am See and Lienz, to name a few.

Frans wrote:

On the official ground movements chart, the GAC is marked as a “customs limit” area.

How does this actually work? As far as I can make out the airport is entirely on French territory – and that with a margin of several kilometers.

@Steve6443

Hi Frans, how can I ensure, if I fly to LFSB, that I stay on the International terminal? I am intending flying there soon and would be interested to know.

Read the NOTAMS carefully. Currently they have mandatory handling for non-based aircraft, and they renew that on a regular basis.
As an alternative I would look at LFGB Habsheim. I would guess you can run cloud-breaking with Basel if needed and then turn to Habsheim.
Currently an Uber would cost around 50chf to get from the airfield to Basel SBB main station…

Airborne_Again wrote:

How does this actually work? As far as I can make out the airport is entirely on French territory – and that with a margin of several kilometers.

The airport is completely split up on the land side, between a French and Swiss sector, with a continuous fence in between. If you leave the terminal to the Swiss sector, you are defacto in Switzerland. There is also no chance to switch to the French sector (or vice versa), except by going back into the main terminal and passing an official customs gate/office.

Within the Swiss sector, you pay with Swiss francs, Swiss companies are located there, Swiss police is present, and you can drive by car or bus on a road that leads only to Switzerland. This road is completely fenced in as well. If you’re at the airport by car, your only option to cross the border is to drive all the way back to Basel and cross a land border there.

The General Aviation Centre (GAC) is located on the Swiss side of the fence, with a gate to the taxiways on airside. In other words: The GAC is defacto Switzerland, even when you’re actually still on French territory and there is no customs available there. See it a bit like a “green border crossing”. That’s why you need to pre-inform customs, as flying from or to the GAC is a defacto national Swiss flight. Even flying from or to another aerodrome in France, requires a notification to customs, as the GAC is not ‘France’, even when it’s on French territory. @Marcel Correct me if I’m wrong, maybe home-based pilots have some special agreement for customs procedures at LFSB.

I know, it all sounds very strange, but that’s the specialty of being a bi-national airport. Basel has btw. two more of these examples. The German highway A5 has a Swiss fuel station with rest/service area on German territory, behind the customs checkpoint. Just a few years ago, it was forbidden to sell alcohol in Swiss stores direct next to the highway. Just this one Swiss fuel station was allowed to sell alcohol, since it was still located on German territory.

And then you have a German railroad station on Swiss territory, called “Basel Badischer Bahnhof”, operated by Deutsche Bahn (DB). As long as you stay within that railway station, you remain defacto in Germany, guarded by German federal police. Only upon leaving the building, you pass a customs checkpoint by foot. The train itself becomes only international, as soon as it’s leaving that railway station for the main station “Basel SBB”, which is completely Swiss.

Marcel wrote:

Currently they have mandatory handling for non-based aircraft, and they renew that on a regular basis.

Yes, but you can still call the main PPR number and they arrange something. At least they did with me, without additional cost.

If it is in EU law then France would normally apply it or seek exemption from it.
But where in EU law does it state it?
I can’t find it other than stated on Euroga with no official source. Ok EU directive 2020/877. But where in that does it say you can land at any airfield including a non Union Airport. I have read that several times and both @LeSving and I commented that there was nothing there to suggest what is being said here. It does refer to a 2015 customs document and to changes to it.
AFAICS putting the 2 together still does not allow landing at any non union airport when coming from outside the EU.
@Bosmantico I am very used to dealing with customs formalities for temporary import and re export round the world and am very used to reading and understanding customs legalize.
I have also quoted this thread to senior customs officers and as I said they say “show me the legislation”.
Some sort of wishful thinking from someone in Germany or Switzerland does not constitute EU legislation.
So please show me the legislation and please don’t quote that it’s somewhere in an EU directive which builds on and updates a 2015 directive which is 527 legislation pages long which itself builds and updates prior directives.
So Bosmantico show me the legislation so that I can see of I can understand it and if not we have an advocat in our club. If its EU law it will also be available in French and English so I don’t even have to translate it.

gallois wrote:

It does refer to a 2015 customs document and to changes to it.

That is exactly the key part.

@gallois, I follow your interpretation of EU 2020/877 in so far as it applies specifically and only to the means of transport (in this case the aircraft) and not the goods being carried. In the case of Germany, the German customs (Zoll) has issued a document that clarifies the impact. In that document is stated that EU 2015/2446 is supplemented by EU 2020/877 to include means of transport. According to this German customs document, goods falling within the duty-free limit are also thereby exempt from the need to make a first stop at a customs airfield. On the other hand, if the limit is exceeded then a customs airfield needs to be used for first landing. As mentioned by @Dan and others, this letter is being interpreted by Swiss pilots as a statement of “nothing to declare”, similar to crossing a road border without customs control, as long as the airfield of first landing does not have customs (PoE or special customs permission with PNR). The letter also states, as mentioned in this thread, that nonetheless notice must be given as required if a customs airfield is being used for first landing.

Here is the original German language customs letter as well as the same information on the German customs web site:
2022_03_03_Best_C3_A4tigung_Zoll_Aufhebung_Zollflugplatzzwang_pdf
Zoll_online_Fachmeldungen_Vereinfachungen_bei_der_Zollanmeldung_f_C3_BCr_Bef_C3_B6rderungsmittel_pdf

Your search seems to be more for information supporting the standpoint that there is no need to go through customs if any goods being carried are within the duty-free limits, separate from the means of transport covered by EU 2020/877. This must be the case, since it is possible to drive from Switzerland into France on any number of roads without a customs office at the border. All EU 2020/877 does is include the means of transport (aircraft) in this exemption.

gallois wrote:

EU directive 2020/877

2020/877 is an amendment regulation, so you should really check the consolidated version(s) of the regulation(s) it amends which in this case are 2015/2446 and 2016/341.

But where in that does it say you can land at any airfield including a non Union Airport.

Every airport within the customs territory of the EU is a “union airport”. (This is in the definitions of 2015/2446.) So there are no “non union airports” within the EU.