Nope – i was routing direct from the UK.
Very odd, i shall remove the comment and treat is as a one-off/mistake!
I’ve just added 20 more airfields to the list – i reckon it’s close to being complete!
I am going to be real harsh now. Please bear with me.
carlmeek wrote:
On first contact with French Radar (I forget the frequency) i announced myself. I was told “G-VX you require PPR To land at Deauville, do you have a PPR Number”. I said no, he let me go there anyway, and nobody on the ground mentioned it again.
You, @carlmeek, claim that France is complicated, that AIP is not up-to-date and France is a mess. You basically claim that you are capable of doing a better job than others at providing an up-to-date list of ports of entry in France – which we have already proven you are not.
Then you claim there is a PPR requirement (for immigration?) at Deauville which is not documented anywhere?
I called the airport operator. They tell me there was a PPR requirement from 12-15 May due to a horserace event. There is no other PPR in force. Deauville has a great afflux of planes on occasion of horse races in conjunction of which they require PPR – probably essentially to make sure there is sufficient parking.
So you basically admit you did not check NOTAMs.
No wonder things get complicated for you.
I must have missed the NOTAM – I hold my hand up and admit it. I’m sure everyone’s made a similar mistake from time to time. Two pilots on board flying alternate legs, one of those pilots is an airline captain. Both missed it. On arrival, I’ve never seen such an empty airport, so goodness knows why they needed PPR in force!
Anyway, back to the topic of this thread:
My “claims” of complexity are really not my own – i’m only posting on this forum after the topic started on another forum. Pilots contact me all the time to ask about this, and are usually confused.
I will let people make up their own minds about whether it is complex, but there are some discrepancies i’ve come across doing this exercise:
1. There is a legal list of ports of entry published here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1494327803409&uri=CELEX:52017XC0413(02)
2. The AIP has some airfields that give details of customs that are not on this list. On phoning / emailing i have had positive confirmation that they can accept extra-Shengen flights.
3. There are news items about other airfields being added, but the entries do not get updated
4. It took many months for the 2016 customs removal to make it to the AIP, for example Pontoise was still showing as customs for a long time. Its corrected now.
My reason for taking on this list is because OnlineGAR get a huge volume of traffic, so it’s a very relevant place. I have no personal axe to grind. I’m sure other countries are confusing too, but France is the number one destination for UK pilots, so it’s of great relevance to try to organise the information.
carlmeek wrote:
My “claims” of complexity are really not my own – i’m only posting on this forum after the topic started on another forum. Pilots contact me all the time to ask about this, and are usually confused.
No kidding. Especially with information like the above. It is actually very simple. AIP and NOTAM. But there are way too many people that blur this into confusion.
1. There is a legal list of ports of entry published here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1494327803409&uri=CELEX:52017XC0413(02)
Yes. That is indeed the legal reference for all Schengen countries. Each member state reports updates to the list which are then published (by country) in the OJ.
2. The AIP has some airfields that give details of customs that are not on this list. On phoning / emailing i have had positive confirmation that they can accept extra-Shengen flights.
I would be interested in examples of this.
3. There are news items about other airfields being added, but the entries do not get updated
I would be interested in examples of this.
4. It took many months for the 2016 customs removal to make it to the AIP, for example Pontoise was still showing as customs for a long time. Its corrected now.
Yes. I am very familiar with the subject of Pontoise. Here is the sequence of events. First of all Pontoise lost the PoE status in 2011 or 2012 – long before 2016. The new list of PoE got posted in the OJ but there was no NOTAM nor update to AIP. Guess what? We continued flying happily to England from Pontoise until a NOTAM was published for a limited period of time (probably the longest period allowable). Then the NOTAM kept being renewed – sometimes with delay of a few days – until the AIP was finally updated last year IIRC.
If you want to fly to Pontoise to/from the UK, you will probably have a chance to do so during a 3-week period in June 2017, before, during and after the Paris Air Show. On that occasion LFPT usually recovers its PoE status.
The Toussus AIP has still not been updated, so a NOTAM is still out.
Its not quite as simple as AIP and NOTAM – it’s a case of Legal Ports of Entry + AIM + NOTAM. It’s for this reason a simple list is desirable.
The list we’ve compiled so far is 79 airfields in France offering customs:
https://www.onlinegar.com/frenchcustoms.olg
Compared to the legal list of 74. I’ve noted on the list “Caution this site is not listed on the official EU list of entry points.” for the extra items.
Cherbourg is a current site where their website demands PNR that’s not in the AIP.
Another pilot commented: "….several airfields that had customs taken away from them, have made arrangements with the local customs office to allow direct flights from outside Schengen – subject to some locally agreed rules. "
carlmeek wrote:
Its not quite as simple as AIP and NOTAM
It is. You (and others) are overcomplicating it by referring to websites and whatnot.
Another pilot commented: "….several airfields that had customs taken away from them, have made arrangements with the local customs office to allow direct flights from outside Schengen – subject to some locally agreed rules. "
I believe that may be true. LFLU Valence Chabeuil may be an example. But it is in the AIP.
What does “On Request” actually mean? I take that It very likely means that they aren’t there and will come when prompted but how does it sit compared to the others:
I intepret:
PN: I can go, as long as I sent the information to the right place before the deadline
PPR: I can go, only if they allow me to, after I asked.
I would tend to think O/R is more like PPR but nay legal basis somewhere?
Having just translated a whole load of these, i came to the conclusion that from an operational perspective there’s no real difference between O/R and PNR. They’re both prior notice with no explicit requirement for an acknowledgement. PPR sounds like it needs an actual acknowledgement, but this is rarely mentioend anyway.
O/R for me is the same as PNR. No permission from the other side involved.
