Going back from Heringsdorf to Roskilde today I tried calling Bremen Information after Heringsdorf left me with “frequency change approved”. Bremen Information was a tape recording in English and German basically saying no one home but if in urgent need contact radar.
After a visit a few weeks ago with Naviair handling the Danish ATC I was told that every country is required to provide a Flight Information service. Germany is not taking this requirement very serious.
In the end I called Barth and asked if I could stay with him for the water crossing.
Yes, it was the same last year during high summer. A couple of people on sickleave, a few more on vacation, and voilà, no more FIS. A disgrace. Happens only at Bremen. In a couple of years, when all German FIS will be centralized, this probably won’t happen any longer.
Happens in some French SIV sectors as well, unfortunately. To the point that some airports in the south publish NOTAMs to the effect that you must only contact them if you intend to enter their controlled airspace.
Sure, but I wasn’t going to put German ATC and French ATC into one basket. In France, everybody just goes on holiday in August and very little is done to avoid these situations. So, such thing happening in France is normal, but in Germany, it is considered a big faux-pas.
Bremen were very stretched today stating “unable to provide traffic service” due to controller workload. It made me feel at home. The sole, familiar, voice on the radio seemed to cope nonetheless.
Not so Dutch Mil who would not answer my calls despite several Dutch aircraft getting replies. There’s nothing wrong with my radio, so what’s up with them?
Dutchmil has the same issue: Staffing shortage and they just issue a NOTAM saying that there will be no FIS available.
I’ve started a similar thread on this issue in 2015: Can FIS just close whenever they like?
Bremen Information is my “home FIS” and I never experienced something like this yet. Usually I think their service is quite good, I received lots of useful traffic information from them during my XC-Solos.
Like bosco I think it is a disgrace to let them be so understaffed that a situation as described in the OP occurs. Very un-German!
I experienced the opposite a few years back, flying VFR from Kassel (Calden) to Sövde (ESMI) in the evening (still daylight). After being completely silent on the radio for 20 min or so, I did a radio check and Bremen responded – “Hear you five, you are the only aircraft on my frequency” :-)
I had the same issue a few weeks ago flying from my home base, to Peenemünde EDCP. I always get a service from the western portion of Bremen FIS on 125.1 but after trying to check in a few times on the eastern sector on 132.650 I finally heard the pre-recorded announcement pmh mentioned.
Aveling wrote:
Bremen were very stretched today stating “unable to provide traffic service” due to controller workload. It made me feel at home. The sole, familiar, voice on the radio seemed to cope nonetheless.
Interesting – I did a couple of flights over the day and got perfect service including active traffic information from Bremen Information on all of these flights, same on Saturday (Düsseldorf-Norderney, Norderney-Leer, Leer-Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf-Juist, Juist-Leer, Leer-Düsseldorf, not to mention Norderney-Baltrum and back without Bremen Information of course). At what time did you not the get service?
I had a similar (in my view, more severe than closed FIS) situation on New Year’s Eve last year when returning from Zell am See in the evening after a short skiing trip. This was the week of that amazing high pressure area with record high QNHs. There were extensive areas of very low cloud on our flight path and we constantly updated our alternatives in flight (at any time, diverting further east would have been a save option). In the end, as it was getting dark as well, our preferred alternate became Kassel-Calden EDVK. I had checked with FIS sometime en-route about their availability and WX and all was fine. Half an hour later, when I checked again, FIS said “I’m sorry, there is no response from Kassel – it seems like they’ve gone home already”. While I sympathize with everyone cutting a few hours to have a good New Year’s Eve celebration, this could have put us at serious risk, had the visibility at EDLP deteriorated (which it hadn’t) and had we not had plenty of reserve fuel on board (which we had). Other airfields in the vicinity could not be used due to a lack of runway lighting. I don’t think a “Verkehrsflughafen” should close arbitrarily, even if they don’t expect any more traffic.
