PS That address is not the La Rochelle customs address. I’m guessing the NOTAM is because the La Rochelle customs team are understaffed.
is the correct address for La Rochelle
Vladimir wrote:
You probably mean “is now 24hr PPR”.
Sure did! Now corrected.
Thanks Alan for your update.
The problem is that the police never reply to any of these messages, so if you get no bounceback, you can’t assume they got it, so you could get trouble when you turn up. I got some at Cherbourg some weeks ago; they let me through after a while. They do – at least in some cases – make use of these notifications, in the sense that if you turn up without having sent one in, they will get “funny” about it even if they were already present anyway. And some French airports are PNR for non-Schengen even though they have commercial flights so prob99 have 24/7 police presence anyway.
My alternate for La Rochelle LFBH would be Shoreham EGKA 
Peter wrote:
if you turn up without having sent one in, they will get “funny” about it even if they were already present anyway.
That is called “enforcement”. If PPR (or any rule for that matter) is not enforced, people stop paying attention. It is not because they were there that it is OK not to have notified them.
While that is true, the thing that people get excited about is not so much this case (customs present at the airport by coincidence) but airports where customs are always PPR now, even if they are always present at the airport, at least during office hours. Dinard is one such case, AFAIK. They just want to know “what will happen in the future”. So, for a minimal benefit of theirs (I’d rather say: zero), they create a huge problem for pilots, which is not proportionate.
Well, two or four hours we can live with. 8 or 24 hours starts being somewhat constraining, but still manageable. Beyond that it starts creating difficulties for flight planning, especially VFR.
There may be operational reasons that we do not know about which prompt the PPR(N) even though customs/immigration are generally present like at LFAT and LFRD, We just do not know. One might wish for a GAR-like mechanism. One might have wished for the UK joining Schengen. One could have wished for France maintaining the PoEs with French taxpayer money for which the ROI is unknown. Either way jumping up and down on EuroGA, complaining about the sorry state of things, cursing Brussels, France and Cologne does not serve any other purpose than winding up a lot of people, creating negativity and discouraging others from crossing the Manche. Those who have that much energy to spend on complaining should transform it into something positive, like Bart did wrt excessive airport fees.
So:
What I object more to wrt customs PPR in France, is that they call it PPR instead of PNR, and seldom acknowledge reception.
Peter wrote:
The Notamed customs contact for LFBH bounces back… they could not even bother to check it! I copied/pasted it from the notam, changing just the @ character.Perhaps I should have faxed it
All french customs email addresses are in this format
[email protected]
You don’t have many choices for XXXXX but this website can give an interactive map
http://douane.gouv.fr/articles/a12422-carte-interactive-des-services-douaniers-ouverts-au-public
Then change bse by bsi or cli
I know it could have been easier if the guy typing the NOTAMS has an AZERTY keyboard
I found the outdated list bellow very useful:
here
That’s an amazing post, Ibra. Especially that French territory customs map.
Customs stop in N Ireland
After a delay I’m planning to complete the first half of my transatlantic trip this Friday when I bring my Lancair from Vagar EKVG (outside the EU) to Exeter EGTE.
Unfortunately, according to the AIP, customs at Exeter are only available until 2000 local, which I won’t be able to manage. Does anyone know:
1. If it’s possible to get customs after hours (I’ll be the only one on board and am a UK citizen)?
or
2. Where would be a good customs (and optionally refueling) stop in Northern Ireland or western GB?
Thanks!
Prestwick has customs, IIRC.
