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UK GAR form discussion, and UK border police procedures

For example this (contact numbers may be out of date) shows that if you are departing from say Shoreham EGKA to the EU, you do need to notify Customs, which is beyond what the law requires.

This page on Oxford EGTK's site has a table whom to notify in what cases, where some items are compulsory, and some others are "recommended as best practice". I wonder if these are "private instructions", too, or just someone trying to be holier than the pope.

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

That best practice is rubbish. Special branch have no involvement in flights outside the common travel area.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Filed an online GAR yesterday. Worked well. A great development to simplify access to the GAR system. The first time takes a while to set up but the mobile apps can use your contacts for the passengers.

AOPA website

EGTK Oxford

Interestingly, the Save function says it is not implemented in the web version.

That's a pity because I can retrieve a past GAR .doc file, change the flight details, print it to a PDF and email that, in less time. Of course that won't give me any assurance of it having been received. But it does mean that a well organised person who is still at home and who is doing only the standard thing i.e. emailing to the ncu@ email address, can do it quicker the old way.

I have not tried any apps (have a Symbian phone) and I am not sure I would want to keep peoples' passport numbers etc on my phone

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I concur with Peter re the effort required for traditiomal submission (using pre-compiled Word or Excel file) vs. the new web-based tool.

The real advantage I see is in not having to worry about the correct addressing of agencies and especially not having to find out the contacts of the correct police station for flights where that is relevant.

Unfortunately, one still has to know exactly "how the rules are" because one always needs to know what notification periods (4/12/24 hours) apply, depending on the locations of the departure an arrival aerodromes. Therefore, for foreigners (who only venture to the British Isles once a year or less) the system is still difficult to master.

BTW, does the tool "reject" a GAR which is being sent "too late"?

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

If you go to the goav8.net site, load the alternative portal link (here), allow it to load then right click then you can save an app to your desktop. it can then reload old GARs.

My understanding is that this tool will allow later GAR submissions than paper versions in practice.

EGTK Oxford

John might chime in on this one, but I seem to remember from the Flyer forum that he mentioned that - at least for the moment - notification periods will not be reduced.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Yes, the desktop-saved version does save/recall, but it doesn't appear to offer multiple saved versions. I have just tried it and it just pulls out the last saved one.

I keep copies of all GARs all the way back (on both my home PC and my travelling laptop) and I name the files e.g. gar-egka-ldsb-20130409.doc and it's fairly obvious from that whether it's worth re-using, because I can usually remember the passengers, which is what takes the longest to re-enter.

I know other pilots do their own versions of such a system.

I also know that some bizjet pilots struggle with this stuff, spending significant amounts of time copying/pasting passenger details. Those who carry passengers who like throwing money around don't do it (the handling agent does it all for you) but I am informed that the number of bizjet passengers who like to throw money around is not what it used to be. And if the pilot has only an Ipad (as is the modern fashion) then copy/paste is just plain torture.

What is the normal GAR notification period for a "Customs" airport? I don't think it is more than 4 hours.

The point I am trying to make is that a foreign pilot flying into the UK is not going to head for a non-Customs airport anyway (because that is likely to get him arrested in many other places) and the ability to use the GAR system to fly into a non-Customs airport is just a nice bonus.

And if he is leaving the UK then, ahem, the notification period is just slightly moot, isn't it?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The point I am trying to make is that a foreign pilot flying into the UK is not going to head for a non-Customs airport anyway (because that is likely to get him arrested in many other places) and the ability to use the GAR system to fly into a non-Customs airport is just a nice bonus.

Foreigners are sometimes smarter than you think We use boscomantico's excellent site

Bosco, yes I think you are right. But it also seems clear that eventually you will not be able to email it in. Online is the future.

EGTK Oxford
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