Yesterday as weather in the uk south east went sour, someone in my club had difficulty diverting to his alternate, he did not ask for PPR: the atc (=airfield manager) still insisted on him to have ppr unless it is an emergency.
Do you call alternate and ask them for permission for a possible divert?
I always put my departure airport as alternate (for pax comfort, I don’t do more than 2h legs while usually on 6h endurance) and licky to never have to switch to another destination airport
What I’ve been saying for donkey’s years – PPR’s are a risk to safety. Stupid enforcement like this will get some flight student killed one day, if it already hasn’t.
Surely the answer would/should have been “yes I am declaring an emergency and require to land”. Sort out anything else after being safely on the ground.
Flying to alternate because you can’t land to original destination is an emergency enough to override PPR. If airport wants to avoid such possibility then they define in AIP that filing this airport as alternate is not allowed.
Emir is right – if you declare an emergency.
And flying to the alternate is an emergency. It has to be, because to take the contrary view is tantamount to saying you need a second alternate, and then arguing that flight is not an emergency is tantamount to saying you need a third alternate, etc…
Most of the time there is no issue and a diversion just works fine.
However it can be a grey area, if someone takes the view that it wasn’t really an emergency. Let’s say you had 5hrs in the tanks and it was a nice day and you had 10 airports in range. If you didn’t obtain PPR or PNR (and bear in mind that the alternate airport may not have received your flight plan, and anyway a flight plan almost never stands for PPR) the airport might refuse the landing.
Most won’t refuse because
But some, especially some “little hitler” types of places with AFIS or A/G, will refuse a landing clearance, especially if the PPR/PNR was required for customs/police. It has happened to me (not on any alternate though) and I know of lots of other cases. So you have to be ready to declare a mayday, and if weather cannot be used with a straight face, using a pretext such as “low oil pressure”. Unfortunately many pilots are sh1t scared of ATC, don’t confine decisionmaking strictly to the cockpit, and could be pushed into a dangerous situation. That “oil” thing was always my plan for Corfu LGKR which had a history of this and required PPR by fax, didn’t always confirm it, and the alternates were always rubbish (actually most alternates are rubbish). And that may be questioned because if they smell a rat and want to get revenge they could refuse a departure on “safety grounds” 
So, it’s a grey area, especially when customs/police are involved. Lots of stories around on where somebody diverted to some little place on a non schengen flight and had to wait for ages for the police to arrive. The police are normally “interested” in diversions because it is a standard tactic used in smuggling.
On this one it was an AG aerdrome for a flight within the UK, yes usually when atsu is separated from managment you tend to get “a professional treatment” for your request, so it makes more sense to go for an ATC but then landing fees and airport complexity creeps in (of course safety comes first)
On international flights, I guess the default choice for “weather/route altnerate” will be another big airport with customs as well or has at least some repair/maintenance capacity (so just a matter of sending another flight notification before airborn) unless the only way you have is going down then you don’t need anyone permission for a PFL (you will need everybody sign offs to take off again)
The last case of a refusal I recall was an AFIS airfield in Essex, UK (I really don’t recall which) and the reason given was that the airfield did not receive the GAR. This was mad on two counts: (a) no airfield has the right to see the GAR unless registered under the Data Protection Act for handling that information and (b) it is a gross deriction of aviation safety to refuse the landing. The pilot unfortunately got scared and didn’t insist.
Actually a fair point is that if your alternate is likely to be important, calling them to check fuel and opening times is a good idea. For example a few UK airports (Shoreham, Cambridge, possibly others) have been suffering from ATC shortages and resulting shutdown periods, differently on each day, and a landing during these closures (which is non-radio since the staff on break diligently go nowhere near the radio even if they hear calls) will be reported to the CAA, and rumour (which I hope is false but I am not going to test it) is that unless there is a good reason they will go for a ~£1000 fine. I’d deffo check airport notams on the day.
I understand police/customs PNR coming from a GAR angle (tough that AFIS guy has to sort out privacy stuff and his exact role), however, airfield permission PNR that should be granted in the air without much drama, especially on a local flight unless the airfield has something important to be said in the AIC or notmas
My guess, is that unlike ATC who cares about air safety, AFIS/AG are only concerned about what happens on their ground for safety/security reasons, and as there is les clarity on roles and responsabilities, you get the “stay out attitude” as simple default answer for them to avoid troubles: just kill the whole buisness and you have nothing to worry about, that what ppr does in some places, the side effects are safety as Adam mentioned or privacy as you highlight…
I guess in some places, even if you call them before airborn you will get pushed to choose another alternate (then, next will be a visit with a glider)
Can an AFIS/A/G Operator really refuse a landing clearance? In the strict sense of that word they can’t issue a "clearance " anyways (only ATC can do that) so they cannot refuse one either, right?
Of course I know this works differently in practice. In Germany we know of many instances of Flugleiter behaving like ATC (or worse), even though the majority are alright.
I also thought that an AFIS was not allowed to give instructions, only information on which the pilot should make his/her own decisions.
