You’re a brave man, flying GA into a commercial IFR airport in the the Alps on a Saturday in ski season!
Checking NOTAMs, the one showing IFR restrictions comes out immediately. Inter alia, it mentions a temporary ban on any IFR training flights. Did you declare it as such? It also points to AIP SUP 254/17, which shows some further restrictions.
What I agree with is that it doesn’t say anywhere that SEPs cannot generally fly IFR on weekends.
I did Annecy 2 years ago with no problems, except as noted above by Bosco that you get hammered with a large bill if you do a weekend movement. For skiing etc Annecy needs a weekday arrival and a weekday departure. Are there new restrictions?
I see this
SCHEDULE: SAT SUN H24
IFR FLIGHTS RESTRICTIONS:
- SCHEDULE FACILITATION: SEE AIP SUP 254/17
- TRAINING PROHIBITED
- FPL INBOUND LFLP : NO ARRIVAL IN VFR
- FPL INBOUND ANOTHER AD : DO NOT USE LFLP AS ALTERNATE AD.
: NOTAM LF/B7008/17
which to me reads that you can arrive VFR provided it is not on a flight plan 
but more likely they are trying to ban Y flights (IFR to VFR) like I believe Cannes did or do for a long time.
Normally a ban on alternate AD use is to prevent the old trick of filing for elsewhere and diverting to your intended destination. That is the world’s second oldest profession and was an SOP in certain charter ops 
It is effective because ATC are not in a position to refuse a diversion flight, because you are required to have only one alternate and once proceeding to that you [may] have to declare a mayday if anything is refused.
I am based at Annecy so thankfully exempt from this restriction but I believe you can still fly into LFLP IFR provided you book a slot through the myhandling portal. This is only applicable in the winter time (as per the notam where it’s clearly indicated) and is mainly due to the fact that IFR departures will most always be from runway 22 and arrivals are on 04 so that creates an obvious spacing issue. Adding to that, the RNAV Z approach has shared points with Chambery approach and cuts through the Chambery departure and arrival axis for their 18/36 runway creating even more spacing issues.
VFR is fine as you’ll be away from the axis and they can get you to land 22 which is helpful for the flow.
Hope that helps.
Pasha
Is the myhandling stuff really required? I went through it last time and it didn’t work too well and they were not actually bothered. A bizjet pilot friend of mine says his community really hates it.
It looked to me like whoever was promoting that booking website did a good job convincing airports to use it however!
Agree with you Peter, it’s generally perceived as a pain to use. I haven’t used it personally but it seems that’s the way to make sure you can file an IFR flight plan to LFLP or LFLB during the “skiing period weekends”. Other option is just to make it a long weekend and fly in Friday pm and out Monday morning :)
I am also based there and can confirm that there was a NOTAM that said no SEP IFR flights during the weekends for the ski season. Last time I saw it was in December but I haven’t checked since then and given that the holidays are over I’m not too surprised it’s gone.
This NOTAM was first added last year around February. I flew just a week before it was introduced and the controller was obviously very annoyed that I had dared make an IFR departure on a weekend. I have no idea if there is a direct causal factor here but I’m guessing it did not contribute positively.
Also regarding Eurocontrol-validated flightplans, it has indeed become much more difficult. Even for training flights LFLP/LFLP, it’s now impossible as far as I’ve been able to tell.
Thanks Everyone,
A) I had not indicated this was a training flight – I just tried to get IFR from LFHN to LFLP
B) there really is no NOTAM indicating SEP IFR flights are prohibited on weekends, it is only indicating not to use LFLP as an alternate (if there is one I can’t find it)
C) it was LFLB radar that threw me indicating they could not activate my IFR flight plan (after which I politely declined to have it converted into a VFR plan)
D) clearly Annecy Tower knew I tried to file a Z plan with a Eurocontrol accepted route as they asked me 3 times if I was on a VFR flight plan (which conveniently I wasn’t)
E) once it became clear i could not be rejected for finishing VFR I was cleared for a touch and go (rather pointless)
TBH thinking about it – trying to fit in this IFR flight during the small lul in the weather hostilities was likely not a great move given the routing over LFLB and the amount of traffic going in there that is likely bothered by me flying the whole procedure…
It is getting pretty difficult getting any IFR approach in the vicinity as Grenoble is equally busy, Dijon and Dole are both no good and Geneva one can safely forget about as well… seriously starting to question which airport to use as an alternate going forward…
Just going to clarify your point B to make sure there are no misunderstandings for anyone else thinking of flying to LFLP.
Yes there is a very clear NOTAM which is below:
B) 16 DEC 2017 00:00 C) 08 APR 2018 23:59
E) SCHEDULE FACILITATION : SEE AIP SUP 254/17 AVAILABLE ON WWW.SIA.AVIATION-CIVILE.GOUV.FR.
B6771/17 NOTAMN
B) 16 DEC 2017 00:00 C) 08 APR 2018 23:59 D) SAT SUN H24
E) IFR FLIGHTS RESTRICTIONS: – SCHEDULE FACILITATION: SEE AIP SUP 254/17 – TRAINING PROHIBITED – FPL INBOUND LFLP : NO ARRIVAL IN VFR – FPL INBOUND ANOTHER AD : DO NOT USE LFLP AS ALTERNATE AD.
B7008/17 NOTAMN
It then takes only 2mins to click on that site and find the AIP SUP 254/17 which link is here (only in French) where all the temporary procedures are explained:
https://www.sia.aviation-civile.gouv.fr/pub/media/store/documents/file/l/f/lf_sup_2017_254_fr.pdf
Yes it may be a pain, but the information is really there if you look for it :)
[ local copy ]
pashab wrote:
the AIP SUP 254/17 which link is here (only in French)
AIP SUP in French only? What can you say…
Here is the english version :
https://www.sia.aviation-civile.gouv.fr/documents/download/f/d/179581/
