This was posted on a FB site of AOPA Greece. I keep telling them to post this stuff here on EuroGA because very few potential visitors to Greece are going to be reading their FB page, whereas EuroGA gets superb SEO (google ranking, basically).
From AOPA Hellas (Greece) Facebook page where they post their news earlier.
Why AOPA Hellas does not think about aircrafts in the range 4-5T? Why only <3T (as is the recent arrangement)? I hear conversations even only <2T sometimes when advocating for GA. Why is that?! There are people flying privately on a bit bigger aircraft, who are not oligarchs and it’s quite an embarresment, when we have to pay ~500 euros for entry port and then the same at destination for no reason, crew only. Basic handling they say, haha, it includes “ULD loading/unloading”, btw. (and some other interesting things). Did you try to put a ULD into Cheyenne? ;)
Greece is a great destination, but apparently only scheduled flights are welcome and only some limited type of GA traffic and under some special “don’t step into the shit” procedures.
Pity.
P.S.: Been to Naxos last week. Island is great.
Dear @amingin as far as I’ve heard, AOPA in Greece advocate for the 2 tons MTOW limit as the defacto Private Non Proffit aviation activity because it is a fact that in Greece many private flights show up in airports claiming they are private flights, when in practice it is evident they are not and often get in arguments with the handlers. The AOPA discount contract is for private pilots flying on General Aviation flights (which can include cost-sharing as defined by EASA).
The system has been abused in the past. This is the reason.
The meeting minutes you read above are from a meeting with FRAPORT whereby there was discussion on the possibility for pilots to self book the PPR via a FRAPORT platform with login. It never materialized because FRAPORT insists that the “Airport user” is the HANDLER representative of the flight.
Fraport on that meeting was also implying that (for them) anything above 2 tons MTOW is on the “vague crossborder” between commercial and non commercial operation.
If you read the two discount contracts that AOPA has with SKYSERV and GOLDAIR (www.aopa.gr/Info paragraph 12.b ) the limit is 3.000 Kg MTOW.
Both handling companies set this as a limit and it did not come from AOPA.
It was a “take it or leave it” kind of deal.
Fraport on that meeting was also implying that (for them) anything above 2 tons MTOW is on the “vague crossborder” between commercial and non commercial operation.
So FRAPORT are above the law and can just do what they want (ie define flights to be commercial that aren’t)?
The sensible thing to do would be to use 5700kg as „GA Private“ border, and everything above gets charged the commercial rates.
It’s very simple to distinguish NCO/NCC vs AOC by looking at the fuel bill (AOC won’t pay VAT/Taxes).
Ha! These prices are way above the average even for commercial flights below 5700 kilos. I can’t fathom, how MTOW is related to commercial or not in any case.
When Fraport comes, problems arise, next day – parking is limited due congestion, PPR. Previous day – everyone happy, next day – Fraport. I saw it happening in Ljubljana.
It’s about the state of mind… If you know what I mean. I feel these executives simply don’t understand what GA is. If Greece wants traffic to their islands during these hard times, Fraport must be returned to normality. Only AOC above 5700 should be charges these crazy amounts. Aviation will blossom.
Today flew to Graz. No handling required, walked to the GAT. Beautiful! I think I will pay sub 150 euros for 4T. No hassle, border is there, smiling, even though international flight are rare.
On a side note, yes, NCC guys haul pax, ok. So what? Why family of three coming on turboprop should pay like it’s B737?!! Even if it’s commercial, it’s a lot, unsustainable.
Unfortunately the steep price increases above 2t are quite common. At EDTL above 2t is around 175 EUR, below 2t is 30 Euro. Or LDLO which we all love so much. Landing fee below 2t before VAT etc is 200 kuna. Above 2t is 1000 kuna. LSZS is still kind of ok up to 4t but then things go through the roof. As bad as it might be in some cases the 3t limit in Greece is still quite “friendly”. Also I agree with some of the complaints about airports in Greece regarding parking. But I have also been to some of them and who ever build them forgot about the apron. Probably they assumed some Olympic flight comes once a day picks up passengers and that was it.
Sebastian_G wrote:
Also I agree with some of the complaints about airports in Greece regarding parking. But I have also been to some of them and who ever build them forgot about the apron.
sure. But for example at Corfu where I have been recently if they so wished they could put a HUGE GA apron all the way down the west side of the runway. Enough space for a 100 aircraft, plus a dedicated GA terminal even.
Very slightly tongue in cheek 
Google maps suppresses detail on Greek airports but you can find the image on the EuroGA airport database by choosing the Microsoft map option
