Hania is the same as Souda Bay. LGSA.
The weird PPR I referred to is that one sees different figures according to where one looks. I have seen 5 days, 10 days, 20 days. And the PPR is required not just to land there but also to depart from there. The airport itself was fine but I got severely shafted by that PPR period on a trip in 2007. It can be very difficult to make it all work against weather and – in that case – a notam blocking any routing to where we wanted to go from there.
A 5 day PPR for a departure is like having an airport that is open for 1 day each 5 days. You have to get out on the permitted day and you might have to fly to some place just down the road, to comply. I can’t believe there is a genuine operational reason because they allow Greek reg planes to go there at weekends without PPR, and is a terrorist stupid enough to be flying an N-reg when he can go straight in in an SX-reg? Hania was however very busy with constant F16 ops. Here you can see an airliner waiting one side and four F16s waiting the other side, and they went off soon after I landed.
At least Hania has avgas, and we managed to “escape” to Brac. It was the most stressful day I have ever had in flying – partly due to getting shafted over by Homebriefing who made me wait on their “helpdesk” for long enough to use up my entire £50 phone credit, and offered absolutely zero assistance with the Eurocontrol stuff. After that “learning experience” I made sure that would never happen again. I never used HB again, and got two ways of doing anything.
Kerkira has some “interesting” people working in the office, too 
One of them said to me, with a straight face, they need PPR to control apron capacity – while looking out of the window at a completely empty apron with just my TB20 parked there. But, hey, at a UK airport not a million miles from here, the manager has recently emailed everybody that it is not permitted to run an aircraft engine airside, unless for the purpose of flying. To do so requires a formal risk assessment. So, prop balancing is out, and an engine warmup for a 50hr service needs a taxi to fly and an aborted takeoff due to an oil pressure problem.
But I think the few Greek airports that ever caused any issues are getting much better. Olympic has been privatised and now they are super efficient and on the ball. I’ve never seen anything like it. You get processed like Mrs Merkel with her chequebook open
Haha! Your stories are very similar to mine ;-)
On the other hand: ANYBODY can fly in Germany!
But this time my GREEK speaking wife will come along, and that will change everything, I know that.
this time my GREEK speaking wife will come along, and that will change everything,
Actually…. one of the reasons I so much like flying to and around Greece is that – unlike in some other southern European countries – it is not necessary (or even apparently advantageous) to speak the local language.
They speak English well and are friendly.
In Greece, what you see (in the notams, generally) is what you get. If they say they have avgas, they have avgas and you can buy it. No need to do a nod and a wink in the local language and some “arrangement” with the aeroclub.
The only time Greek is probably desirable is if you want to go down the local market and haggle over the price of fish or whatever. But Greek aviation runs mostly very straight. They have some stupid restrictions (like an airport that is open 2hrs a day) but if you work with those, you are OK. And a pilot does have to do due diligence before flying – anywhere. Even in Germany. It is only the “local flying pilots” (say Shoreham to Bembridge) who just jump in their plane and go. Anything beyond that does need checking out.
Slovenia and Croatia are the same. Stuff just works…
Everything about Greece can be understood ,once you put in your minds that this country is a hybrid of Soviet type bureaucracy combined with Folk Capitalism !!!
For ages,Chania and the rest of PPR infested airports use this capability to protect the “Gained Union Rights of its functioning bureaucrats” and nothing else.
Do not try to find logic on that.This is why you ever find fluctuating Regulations implemented only randomly or the clerck’s mood or how you look !!
Present commitments oblige the Goverment to privatize those 30 infested airports and get rid of the well fed Unionists who control the airports function but also the fate of the
pertinent local economy. A Talk that allready started eges ago. But look Peter, what yesterday happened when the Privatizing Commitee tried to enter Chania LGSA….
www.newsit.gr/default.php?pname=Article&art_id=272640&catid=6
NO PASSARAN-HASTA LA VITTORIA SIEMPRE-LOS AEROPUERTOS PARA LOS TRABAJADORES UNIDOS !!!
*BTW,forget Chania;they dont even have avgas anymore./
you bet I know they speak English in Greece :-)
But it still makes a BIG difference when you speak to them in THEIR language. I know that from Croatia (Croatian is my second mother tongue).
If they say they have avgas, they have avgas and you can buy it
Yes, but sometimes the price is one 1€ higher than the day before, or the handling fee is not 9 but 80 Euros, two days later. I couldn’t find those regulations in the Notams, sorry.
Iraklion LGIR is a clear recommendation on all accounts. It’s a real airport with plenty of traffic and yet it only costs around 30 EUR total with an AOPA crew card (Swissport handling). The airport has everything including avgas and customs and is H24. I did a night landing coming from Africa last year and it was no problem. Due to its size, it takes a bit more time than Sitia to move around but still good in my experience. I have been there 4 times in the last 2 years.
After a 2 hour discussion and five telephoen calls they finally let us fly there, and when we arrived the whole GA area was EMPTY … not one plane!
(sort of) Same thing was done by Santorini LGSR some years ago to a group of two aircraft (from Lebanon I think) who wanted to fly there from another Greek airport.
The answer was that there was no space available.
They selected other destination and overflew (by coincidence) Santorini only to see (and take picture) from above the GA apron side empty.
Later AOPA Greece was informed about the incident and they took action against the airport manager initially with an official complaint to CAA.
CAA made an internal investigation where the outcome was (in my own words from memory) “we manage parking space on first come first served basis; that day there were much earlier requests for all the GA parking spaces but the aircraft (plural) did not turn up. We do not know until short time before if they will come or not”.
AOPA was not happy with the outcome and by own financial means continued with a personal lawsuit for misconduct via its legal department specifically against the airport manager who gave statements to CAA investigation that were by evidence (not the aerial pictures) not true. Amongst others the so called earlier requests were never produced as evidence.
For three years the airport manager was cruising along the aegean with ferries back and forth to Syros (LGSO) which is the admin. capital of these islands to attend to the civil court. It took that long due to postponements and other legal tricks.
Eventually there was nothing major as an official guilty or not verdict (the issue has been buried with legal tricks) BUT the word spread out amongst CAA and that is what matters and it did make a change.
Since then I have personally seen in many airports CAA officers working on their PCs with a DEDICATED software just to manage the PPRs/PNRs.
CAA head office keeps some sort of central database on it and there can be no more “ad hoc” decisions without a record behind it to support them and at any time they may get random spot checks on the procedure via remote access from head office.
Also I think that when there is severe demand for a specific day/time they do contact the previous requests for positive (re)confirmation feedback that they are still valid before turning down new ones.
Also since the Santorini incident nowadays most airports respond swiftly via email but also the coordination is done more efficiently via the HANDLING AGENT which is compulsory anyway “where available” nowadays. During the Santorini incident Handling was not compulsory and most communications were via FAX or telephone with local CAA.
Peter
Yes there is a discount for AOPA members, but it is probably the cost of a plate of calamari
the AOPA discount brings it from 75~80 Euro down to 35 or less. Olympic is not in contract for the discount. Swissport & Goldair are.
A Kalamari plate certainly does not cost 40 Euro but a quarter of that for sure !
alexisvc and all
DO visit Kefalonia (LGKF) this year if you can.
On January 26th a 5.7 scale earthquake hit them hard in a localized area to the west (Lixouri).
It did not affect the tourism infrastructure or the beauties of the island but Kefalonia will need all the visitors it can get this year !
(sort of) Same thing was done by Santorini LGSR some years ago to a group of two aircraft (from Lebanon I think) who wanted to fly there from another Greek airport.
The answer was that there was no space available.
They selected other destination and overflew (by coincidence) Santorini only to see (and take picture) from above the GA apron side empty.
Later AOPA Greece was informed about the incident and they took action against the airport manager initially with an official complaint to CAA.
CAA made an internal investigation where the outcome was (in my own words from memory) “we manage parking space on first come first served basis; that day there were much earlier requests for all the GA parking spaces but the aircraft (plural) did not turn up. We do not know until short time before if they will come or not”.
AOPA was not happy with the outcome and by own financial means continued with a personal lawsuit for misconduct via its legal department specifically against the airport manager who gave statements to CAA investigation that were by evidence (not the aerial pictures) not true. Amongst others the so called earlier requests were never produced as evidence.
For three years the airport manager was cruising along the aegean with ferries back and forth to Syros (LGSO) which is the admin. capital of these islands to attend to the civil court. It took that long due to postponements and other legal tricks.
Eventually there was nothing major as an official guilty or not verdict (the issue has been buried with legal tricks) BUT the word spread out amongst CAA and that is what matters and it did make a change.
Since then I have personally seen in many airports CAA officers working on their PCs with a DEDICATED software just to manage the PPRs/PNRs.
CAA head office keeps some sort of central database on it and there can be no more “ad hoc” decisions without a record behind it to support them and at any time they may get random spot checks on the procedure via remote access from head office.
Also I think that when there is severe demand for a specific day/time they do contact the previous requests for positive (re)confirmation feedback that they are still valid before turning down new ones.
Also since the Santorini incident nowadays most airports respond swiftly via email but also the coordination is done more efficiently via the HANDLING AGENT which is compulsory anyway “where available” nowadays. During the Santorini incident Handling was not compulsory and most communications were via FAX or telephone with local CAA.
Petakas,
we had this discussion last year after I went to Skiathos, but once again, your kind words and explanations of why things are as they are don’t make the whole situation any better in its substance.
This PPR-mania is still a totally bureaucratic way of managing airports. Also, the story of Alexis (calling for PPR, being told it was full when it was actually totally empty) is not the exception; it is the rule, even today. Maybe things have improved a tiny bit in recent years.
we had this discussion last year after I went to Skiathos, but once again, your kind words and explanations of why things are as they are don’t make the whole situation any better in its substance.
This PPR-mania is still a totally bureaucratic way of managing airports. Also, the story of Alexis (calling for PPR, being told it was full when it was actually totally empty) is not the exception; it is the rule, even today. Maybe things have improved a tiny bit in recent years.
boscomantico the chore substance is not significantly better and I did not imply that; for what its worth I just gave some hints on things taking place in the background that many readers may not know here. What has changed is that hassles are more random nowadays than the past when such incidents were more frequent. The source of the problem (PPR-mania) has not changed.
It all comes down to how much someone can bear or not in such cases.
Me personally I will get angry on the spot but not loose my temper or ruin my trip over it since the rest of the “package” really pays back. The airport hassle (if it happens) is a minor nuisance in regards to the whole travel experience. Personally I couldn’t care less once I leave the airport.
For those who cannot bare it (the possibility to face a hassle) there are always other nice places to fly also in this continent.
You have a point there! I will not let them destroy the fantastic experience of flying in this beautiful area. While i DID explode on the spot – a little later it was only a, more or less, funny anecdote.
In Kerkyra, on the way back, when i was already a bit more experienced, i told them that they could call police and get me arrested – but that i would not pay 9 times the landing fee i had paid two days earlier. They reacted shocked and told us to leave without paying anything. Haha!
Lesson: stay cool and insist to see price lists etc.
