boscomantico wrote:
You just have that wrong.
An AIP will only ever mention what services they offer, not what they don‘t offer. Always. So, if, under the CUST section, and airfield speaks only about the requirements for Non-Schengen flights, that MEANS that there are no provisions for non-EU flights!
It is totally strange to me that there is reason for defending this obviously misleading AIP entry. If we pilots can not trust the accuracy of what is written in the AIP and therefore taken over by all the 3rd party customers who provide information to airmen, then pilots find themselfs in a situation whereby they have to consult national law outside AIP to make sure they will not be ruined by misleading or wrong AIP information without having the possibility to even get this stuff corrected.
So basically the non-schengen 24 hour PPR is only for Non-Schengen EU countries. Ok, then this needs to be clarified and has therefore nothing to do with Customs whatsoever but is a pure immigration thing. So again: Mentioning this under CUSTOMS is ASKING for misunderstanding and false interpretation.
boscomantico wrote:
The price for having these concessions is regulatory complexity. Either make it simple, and throw it all away, or offer whatever can be offered under the conditions there are, even if they are complicated.
Regulation must be clear and particularly aeronautical information must be correct and written in such a way that a person without a degree in law in the country he wishes to fly to can understand. Otherwise it is useless. Consequently, the only “safe” airports to fly to for Customs if coming from a non-EU country are those who have official and non-PPR customs status. All the others which offer these services under conditions which need more research than all the flight preparation can not be trusted, particularly not based on the information in the AIP, which imho is a total no-go. If the AIP can not be trusted in this, what else is in there which is wrong or misleading?
Frankly, I will be very wary of ever flying to any of the non-A-List airports in Germany again. With proposterous tarifs for any kind of error, the risk is simply too high if the AIP is so unreliable. In fact, this should be brought to the attention of EASA as well.
AF wrote:
The severity of the penalty.
If the authorities aren’t challenged in cases like these, there is no incentive for them to change.Legal action is burdensome for all involved, which is the point.
At some level, if you make enough noise, the media and/or a politician will get involved.Look, the penalty is absurd. That is grounds for making a ruckus, whether or not the penalty was legal.
If you pay the fine, the incentive is to repeat the process.If you challenge the fine, the opposite is the case.
Game Theory says take action…
This is a political challenge, not a legal challenge. There is no point in attacking the messenger. The whole incidence occurred because the pilot didn’t know/understand the law/regulations, NOT because he was unlawfully prosecuted and judged in some way (according to the law).
I wonder also if this is some local Swiss/German thing on a much larger scale, and pilots happen to be caught up in it ?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
If the AIP can not be trusted in this, what else is in there which is wrong or misleading?
Requirement for two COM radios? Requrement for DME? Prohibition of IFR in class G….
Mooney_Driver wrote:
strange to me that there is reason for defending this obviously misleading AIP entry.
There is not. But, as we have seen:
Mooney_Driver wrote:
So basically the non-schengen 24 hour PPR is only for Non-Schengen EU countries. Ok, then this needs to be clarified
Not really.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Mentioning this under CUSTOMS is ASKING for misunderstanding and false interpretation.
There is no other place to put it in an AIP.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Consequently, the only “safe” airports to fly to for Customs if coming from a non-EU country are those who have official and non-PPR customs status.
That is not the take on this one. The take is to make sure that when customs is PPR, you do have the Zollanmeldung in place before leaving. Nothing more.
I am sure crucifixion does drive the point home effectively, but has a limited value as a learning method.
The fact that we are now at 131 posts and clearly only a few German pilots seem to understand the very local-language-specific subtleties of this case, shows that few reasonable persons would have got this right.
What do we expect from the AIP entry of a small airport ?
It is not the rule book for all things flying.
The basic rule is: Fly in through a full-service airport or, knowing all the relevant details, arrange a more convenient path.
The fact that EU countries do allow for landing at smaller airfields does not put the due diligence responsibility elsewhere.
It shouldnt be the way it happened here, and the effect is totally disproportionate, !
But, as mentioned before, it is a set of rules that could happen at a lot of places in Europe – try sailing into a French port w/o VAT Paid document for your boat… (or Dutch for that matter – i had the doc at hand and enquired about the what-if-not and was suprised)
It would be preferred to have ex-post adjustment options, and I would support such initiative.
ch.ess wrote:
What do we expect from the AIP entry of a small airport ?
To have “Customs: Nil” and leave any local/special arrangements 
Take Abbeville/Toussus in France, if I find 5 vintage/rich friends to fly-out there, I can arrange customs & immigration tough their AIP entry simply says “Nil”
I’ve just read this whole thread, and it beggars belief.
I did a bit of reading around. Switzerland is for sure a Schengen country. It signed on 26 October 2004 and implemented it on 12 December 2008.
Source : Link to Schengen Visa Info
But for some reason I do not think that German customs recognised the Schengen status of Switzerland, or there is another legal document laid over the top. This I trying to find a reliable source. But to support the statement I just made I found this on the Koblenz Airport site:
We particularly advert to the compulsory registration of flight to/from switzerland (which is a NON-Schengen country)!
English Language Source from Koblenz website
but the German says:
Wir weisen ausdrücklich darauf hin, dass auch Flüge aus der oder in die Schweiz (unabhängig vom Schengener Abkommen) der Zollpflicht unterliegen!
German Language Source from Koblenz
There are people on here whose German is FAR better than mine, but I read a conflict between these two statements. The English claims that Switzerland is Non-Schengen, but if I’ve understood the German correctly it translates as "Independent (or “regardless”) of the Schengen Agreement" indicating that there is a separate requirement to declare flights to/from Switzerland.
Information that I can find on zoll.de only talks about Non-EU and EU countries. In any case, the AIP information is misleading.
I remember when I imported a trailer for my Europa, from Switzerland, the hardest part was trying to understand ahead of time what German customs needed, and the phone lines were not helpful. So I packed a hot flask of coffee, to keep me awake though the expected long drawn out delay, and after loading the dismantled trailer on to another registered trailer, headed for the Konstanz border crossing with as much paperwork as I could… I had even done an Atlas declaration.
The result, I got humourous abuse from the customs border agent, because I had timed it perfectly – German was playing in the World Cup. He then took the piss (in good spirits) that I had done all the effort of an Atlas declaration, took only the sales invoice, original “advert” and gave me a bill – wished me well and I was on my way. In was a pleasant experience – but that was at a 24/7 road border crossing post.
How would a community like ours go about that?
I suppose a first step might be to contact Philippe Hauser of AOPA Switzerland on office__at__aopa.ch
In addition to asking the Commission to intervene, every citizen of the Union has the right to petition the Parliament. That’s also free. One cannot reasonably ask German residents to join such a petition (for fear of retribution by HZA) but I suspect that through social media many other EU and Schengen residents might join.
Such actions may achieve nothing more than to raise awareness of the issue, but that also seems to me to be a worthwhile objective.
I think that a central point is that whatever the German authorities may call it, 25,000 Euros for landing a private airplane without Zollanmeldung looks like a fine, smells like a fine, walks and talks like a fine, swells government coffers like a fine and punishes a Schengen area citizen like a fine… It is a shamefully disproportionate penalty which, being imposed pursuant to EU law, undermines the Four Freedoms and concerns every citizen of the Union.
