Yes, but I think every airport is doing its own thing in Ireland. There is no “national GAR” like the UK has.
Correct, and it’s not backed up by leglisation.
Yes, but I think every airport is doing its own thing in Ireland. There is no “national GAR” like the UK has.
Apparently there is a similar system for Ireland.
https://flyinginireland.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IrishGARForm.pdf
[ local copy ]
Maybe this is one issue: Achim’s router does a GAR form, Aeroplus’ product does or will do a GAR form, Carl has some time ago implemented what I believe is a high security hosted system which feeds directly into the UK govt, so there are or will be multiple disconnected solutions. It would be a poor solution if one had to file several different GARs for a trip, via several different websites. However I can’t see why any of these could not distribute the same data to multiple agencies around Europe, in different formats concurrently. So the pilot could choose which website to use.
Also I know for a fact that many people don’t like the idea of supplying GAR details to some private organisations. The information held, if leaked via a hack etc, is sufficient to generate enough of an identity to empty somebody’s bank account, and I happen to know about that too (not myself thankfully) and the bank in that case refused to reimburse the substantial 4 figure sum (presumably on grounds of carelessness). Also there is enough there to establish quite a bit of somebody’s “private life” 
Being a sad old bugger I don’t have a “private life” to conceal but I still send the GAR direct to the government here, via email. No 3rd party and no airport gets to see it.
All that said, I believe a unified GAR is a good solution for what I believe will gradually happen: a de facto erosion of the Schengen “don’t need to show your passport” privilege. That privilege was set up in different times, but not all that different (domestic security considerations have not actually changed much over decades; what has changed is some methods e.g. suicide bombs) and I am sure some members were uncomfortable with it from the start but signed up under political pressure from the centre, in return for low interest €€€ loans (Greece?).
Pilots who don’t fly for money tend to use free facilities whenever possible, which limits the growth of the value-added ones. For example in the UK most use the email facility, especially now that it can be used for the CTA (Channel Islands etc) also which previously required either one of the non-free ones, or a fax. Bizjet pilots go for whichever one is the fastest to use, especially for quickly populating the form with details of regular passengers.
I have been told by the customs officers who check me out every time in LFLX Chateauroux that they drive on purpose 45 minutes each way from their base of Bourges every time my plane lands with the same pic and no pax on that airport. They have to, they say.
I doubt there was ever a requirement to meet every aircraft – if there was, the system would collapse except for airline airports which have a 24/7 policeman. Actually loads of airports have a 24/7 policeman, for security, but he won’t do custom/immigration because that is a different department. What seems to happen is that in some places the police do job creation. I got this in a very obvious way at Salamanca LESA, there are multiple reports of it at Caernarfon EGCK…
What someone posted here a while ago was that the EU pushed in a requirement to meet a specific quota of aircraft (which is basically what most of N Europe had been doing, but maybe not meeting the quota) and France didn’t want to do that so they removed the facilities from many airports. I have never seen a reference for that either…
And a GAR facility which damages job creation will be hard to get implemented.
We are involved in a test program with the Dutch border force authorities and ministry of defense, which resulted in a system with an API for submitting GenDec information. The generic ICAO General Declaration (GenDec) form does not hold passport details, so they have come up with an extended form. The Dutch are already demanding you to fill in such a form 2 hours before your scheduled departure when flying to The Netherlands and coming from e.g. the UK, so for flights flying into the Schengen zone). The same is required for outbound flights crossing Schengen borders. The software runs your passport details against a European system that seems to be in place and in use to scan passenger data for the airlines. I do know that the Dutch Border Force (Koninklijke Marechaussee) is promoting their system within the EU.
The reasons for tightening the security has to do with the terrorist events that have taken place and it seems as well that GA aircraft are used quite a lot by criminal organisations for drugs smuggling.
Flights within the Schengen area are left alone for now, but I do know that the Koninklijke Marechaussee would like to be able to check the intra-Schengen flights more regularly as well. Now, they can only spot check them.
The requirement to carry an ICAO GenDec form when flying into or out of the Schengen area was there all the time, but just not enforced. Now this is changing.
Time for me to chime in after throwing the idea on the table. Here some background
I fly routinely in and out of France, generally from/to Germany and Switzerland.
Since November 2015 the French government has activated the Vigipirate antiterrorism plan.
Here is what can be found on the web site of the airport of Colmar Houssen which I used to visit frequently before.
http://www.colmar.aeroport.fr/en/
Schengen has become irrelevant: if you are flying in or out of France, you must make a customs declaration and use a customs-capable airport.
Don’t even think of trying “the sorry I did not know” line: all you win is a 4 digit fine. Ask me how I know.
I have been told by the customs officers who check me out every time in LFLX Chateauroux that they drive on purpose 45 minutes each way from their base of Bourges every time my plane lands with the same pic and no pax on that airport. They have to, they say.
And they scan the same old french passport and invariably we exchange some jokes about the silliness of all this. With all seven of them (ok, I’m exaggerating here: in reality it is up to seven, the least I got was only two).
The cost of this is obviously a disaster and the clever solution that someone imagined was to shut down customs at many airports.
Some of these airports will be severely impacted by the lack of customs: St Tropez for example. Do they really think the Russian playboy will want to play the customs stopover game in his jet? He’ll just divert to Marbella or Mykonos… And there goes 100’000 Euro of income for the local trade.
So the vision is: the French have an organisation that is unable to deliver what the political will calls for.
By offering them a modern IT solution, we’d be:
- making it possible for them to demonstrate that they have their act together – it won’t stop terrorism but it will cover some bottom ends.
- dramatically cutting the cost of this task from their perspective, making it theoretically possible to allow entry into any airport/airfield that is within reach of a customs base.
- allowing them to have a much better chance of identifying suspicious flights and investigate before sending a task force on site.
From our perspective as pilots, we’d have to
- be positively identified (user profile) and our activity logged
- make a customs declaration on line using a centralised and standardised tool. I can imagine this being an automated feature of Autorouter.
- become their proxy for ensuring that the rules pertaining to both passengers and goods are adhered to.
I don’t think it will do us any harm. I am not proposing this for countries other than France.
What do you think about doing it for France? We deliver a ready to use cloud system and all they have to do is sit back and relax “Mission Accomplished”?
dublinpilot wrote:
Are you speculating, or is there some proposal for customs to charge for attending airports?
A bit of both.
Border checks are fee in Germany, but customs on request is a bit pricey. In Hassfurt police invested more than €50k to do proper border checks, but the checks are free.
If you need customs you can book that 24hrs in advance. The difference is two customs officers are driving from Schweinfurt to the airfield. You have to pay their mileage (about 70km return) and time, that means a 300 to 400 Euro bill, depending on how long the whole process takes.
There are not many people traveling on a regular basis with GA from Schengen to Non-Schengen or the other way round.
Well, the UK has not imploded yet and IMHO (and despite the wishes of many 
) is not going to
Same goes for Croatia and many places east of there…
Additional visa costs will kill of places like L2K.
I reckon very few people who need visas travel via GA, as a % of the total. But, sure, these people always get hassle. There will never be visas between the UK and any place in (modern) Europe.
is there some proposal for customs to charge for attending airports?
I have never heard of that, but with France you can never be sure, because there is a complete disconnect between economics and “law enforcement”.
