Thinking of breaking up the flight back tomorrow. Any good restaurants for lunch near La Rochelle airport?
Sorry i am utterly useless with working out the opening times.
are the french AIP times in UTC? – meaning the airport and customs / police will be open until 23:00 Local ? I am not normally so time critical and cant get the airport on the telephone!
It says it’ UTC in winter and -1 h in summer. So I assume it means aip time is always local time minus 1 h. In any case PN required.
If the AIP does not specify different opening hours for WIN and SUM, I would be extremely suspicious and call ahead for clarification. The AIP publishes the times in UTC, but people work according to local time so there is a one hour offset between winter and summer.
I just had the case in Dinard the other day and was lucky to arrive just before closing although I thought they would close one hour later.
AlexG wrote:
It says it’ UTC in winter and -1 h in summer. So I assume it means aip time is always local time minus 1 h. In any case PN required.
I think it’s UTC in all cases, and in the summer -1 (from UTC). This is so that all year opening times are the same. I thought AIP is always UTC unless specified (I was even surprised the US uses something of an international standard as they are also UTC!)
If you’re coming up the west coast, you’d be very welcome at Bordeaux Saucats (LFCS), where the airfield restaurant has just been taken over by the former chef of a very prestigious restaurant.
Landing: Free
Parking: Free
Avgas available.
Send me a PM if you’d like to stop by :-)
No customs/immigration at LFCS, however… so you cannot even depart from there to any non-Schengen destination.
No customs/immigration at LFCS, however… so you cannot even depart from there to any non-Schengen destination.
There’s that, and the fact that the OP wrote the message 3 years ago, so I hope he’s home by now! 
