I think this is getting well off topic…
In international aviation, the requirement is dispensed with by landing at an airport which has Customs and/or Immigration (as appropriate). You do not have to make any kind of separate declaration.
It gets complicated if you or somebody have imported the aircraft and have not paid the import VAT, or it has been paid but you don’t have the proof, but we have many previous threads on that (search on e.g. “VAT”). This is why people who fly internationally need to carry proof of import VAT paid, and if you are buying a plane which does not come with this, and is not exempted via various other means, you need to discount the price on the basis that one day you may get hit for the VAT.
It also gets complicated if the aircraft has arrived in the EU from a non-EU place and spends too much time in any one country (or in the EU?). The max allowed time varies according to whether the pilot holds an EU passport. Various previous threads on that too. It is something like 6 months if the pilot (or owner if on board) does NOT have an EU passport, and less if he has.
But as I say that is a different topic to what seems to be a totally ill-informed action by the Italian police.
Reading the first post again, it is just possible that they were doing a VAT check but since they could not dig out anybody who could speak English, they make it look like something else in the hope they find something.
It is also possible that there is more to the story…
The Italian AIP GEN 1.2 says:
So far so good. Nothing new under the sun, although the wording is a little strange. I assume they mean “an international airport in the European Community”. It also does not take Schengen/non-Schengen into account.
Then it goes on:
Now what does that mean? And what should be in field 18?
Yes; Italy has various obscure concessions like that. I think that in the above they really mean Immigration and not Customs though (“visa” is hardly related to Customs). I posted this previously in connection with e.g. Oristano which officially listed no Immigration but then I found a local pilot who regularly flew to/from the UK directly, and he was a “foreigner” so prob99 not in the mafia or with “local connections”. Some stuff here. A “valid document” is surely a passport!
We’re a long way off topic now: this was about Italy ;)
Oristano is in Italy.
quatrelle
To explain it once more…
Switzerland is part of SCHENGEN, that means immigration. You can travel from any Schengen state to Switzerland without the need for IMMIGRATION control.
Switzerland is NOT part of the EU and therefore NOT in the CUSTOMS union. Therefore, every flight into and out of Switzerland needs CUSTOMS CLEARANCE.
All international airports in Switzerland (Geneva, Zürich, Bern, Grenchen, Samedan, Lugano, Sion, Basle, Altenrhein) offer those as a standard, the others offer it for flights within Schengen with PPR. It is not difficult but it needs to be done.
Aviathor wrote:
Now what does that mean? And what should be in field 18?
The number of people on board from Schengen and non-Schengen countries. I’ve read almost the same sentence in Danish AIP.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
To explain it once more…Switzerland is part of SCHENGEN, that means immigration. You can travel from any Schengen state to Switzerland without the need for IMMIGRATION control.
Switzerland is NOT part of the EU and therefore NOT in the CUSTOMS union. Therefore, every flight into and out of Switzerland needs CUSTOMS CLEARANCE.
All international airports in Switzerland (Geneva, Zürich, Bern, Grenchen, Samedan, Lugano, Sion, Basle, Altenrhein) offer those as a standard, the others offer it for flights within Schengen with PPR. It is not difficult but it needs to be done.
Thank you …… this is a very much clearer explanation
Peter wrote:
In international aviation, the requirement is dispensed with by landing at an airport which has Customs and/or Immigration (as appropriate). You do not have to make any kind of separate declaration.
That’s quite a generalisation, Peter, that doesn’t necessarily apply everywhere in Europe.
I recently was planning a flight from Perugia LIRZ to Brac LDSB, which is across a Schengen border, both with customs and immigration but Perugia is PPR. Delta Handling at Perugia requested GenDec and operator details for fueling & handling invoice IN ADVANCE. I gathered that to mean that they wouldn’t approve the PPR without. They also said they would charge a penalty of €230 plus 50% of handling fee if PPR were cancelled less than 6hr before ETA.
Sure; many airports are PPR also. And the UK requires personal details of the occupants on the GAR form…
But my statement about flying to the “right sort of airport” is correct with respect to compliance with Customs and Immigration.
