If you are not complying with PPR/PN periods, the REAL problem if you land and they are NOT around, you have to wait untill they are around, if you comply with everything, if they are not around you resume your flying 
Bluebeard wrote:
How all this interacts with say a weekend weather diversion I can only wonder about ……
Same as above, just to expand there are load of reasons why you may end up skipping PPR period, it’s not just diversions it also happens right on your departure day (the email I send 3days before my flight becomes worthless when Deauville METAR is OVC002 or Rouen Runway gets Notamed as clogged, you just have to go elsewhere on short notice), I think Lille, Rouen, Calais & LeTouquet have been always helpful for short notice requests but I would avoid Deauville & Beauvais and many places in the south
A lot of airports state customs “O/R”….Is that PPR or PNR?!
I don’t quite understand.
Years ago I diverted to a certain French airport, for fuel (loads of unforecast headwind).
The place was 24hr PNR for Customs/Immigration.
The guy at the desk said we should just depart and not tell anybody.
I wasn’t so keen on that but luckily I had a French speaker with me, who spoke to the police, telling them it was an emergency diversion, and they said they don’t want to see us.
I had a lot of trouble in the meantime with the Autorouter being unable to file the onward FP, which took some phone calls to LTCC and using a different site to file the next FP. So we were there for an hour or so, not being able to get away fast.
AIUI the police could have insisted that we remain in France for 24hrs. They would then have the option of
I think O/R (“on request”) is PNR but how do you know they got the request? That’s why PNR is dangerous. I always try to get a reply, print it off and carry that. You practically never get a reply from the police (they usually cannot speak any English anyway) but you can usually get one from the airport telling you they notified the police.
LFAT has been 2hr for years but the police there told me that since they sit there 24/7 (Mr Macron has a house there) I don’t need to email it. But I usually do email it anyway; 100% sure that nobody will read it. But this is unusual; I got a sticky situation at Cherbourg which does not have a 24/7 police presence.
In some situations e.g. an arrival from schengen, you can file for say LFAT (no PN required for same country) and then when close to LFAT divert to Lydd Provided you don’t do this regularly you will not get trouble.
I have not researched this in detail, but my impression is that French PNR requirements are gradually being supplanted by PPR requirements.
In practical terms there is a big difference. Permission is very different from giving notice, and implies obtaining positive approval from the customs/police before the specified time limit.
LFAT uses the formula “PPR PN” and certainly looks like you are supposed to get PPR from customs/police (both?) rather than from airport management.
The bottom line with LFAT is that nobody seems to care.
Long may it last (and long may LFAT last as a port of entry!).
Elsewhere in France, things are less sure. The police almost never reply to any communications, IME (anywhere in Europe and especially not in France Spain or Italy) so a reply from the airport is the best you will get. Generally, I find, this works nowadays.
No one give permissions or confirmations unless it’s phone number that you call but then you have nothing in writing? the buttom line, you need to land at a port of entry at the right notified hours that’s the only requirement
If aircraft is VAT free & crew+pob don’t need passports stamps what else can go wrong from not getting PPR confirmation?
The new airfields on the list are:
LFLU Valence – Chabeuil
LFRI La Roche-sur-Yon (Les Ajoncs)
LFBF Toulouse-Francazal
This summer, Le Castellet LFMQ obtained port of entry status for non-schengen flights. link
It was planned to be repeated every summer.
But afterwards, the 2023 F1 Grand Prix got canceled so I guess it won’t happen again.
Jujupilote wrote:
Le Castellet LFMQ obtained port of entry status for non-schengen flights
Indeed, every year they operat LeCastellet during F1 Prix like Pontoise does during LeBourget Airshow, they are not in PPF list but they get PPF status for few days when locals likes it, the mayors will issue an arrete prefectoral…Toussus also had police aux frontieres temporarily in mid Jan 2020 before corona hits and someone started complaining
Hopefully Melun will become one PPF
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52021XC0512%2801%29
The only thing saving immigration in French airports is RyanAir and WizzAir, the mayors love to send their locals from “Brive International” to Croatia & Antalya, in the other hand, there are not that many prefets who gladly open their arms to GA piston & jets, maybe Cannes & LeTouquet?
For customs airports, the rules are way more relaxed, the list of customs airports is very long and already includes places like LeCastellet, Pontoise, Toussus which are not PPF, plus intra-Schengen if one has “nothing to declare” they don’t even need to land in customs airports (one still need to get confirmation on preavis with 24h PN and 1h FPL to ATC)
Local copy of above PDF
Can people please upload PDFs to EuroGA (drag and drop), so long as no bigger than say 1MB. Otherwise I have to do it. Most URLs go dead pretty fast.
For customs airports, the rules are way more relaxed
Does that actually correspond to the AIP AD?
