Could I ask you to let me know how you would read the opening times for this airport?
Normally AIPs have only UTC times in them. I’m interested in a Friday evening arrival in August. I will check directly with the airport in due course, but in the mean time how would you read this?
The entry for Friday in August shows it closing at 1630UTC. Then at the top it says summer -1 hour. So I read it as 15:30UTC which is 17:30 local.
But then there are two items making me doubt that.
1. When do summer times start and end? They aren’t shown? Presumably it’s when the clocks change, but it’s not stated. I’ve always assumed that, but wonder if I’m correct?
2. They go to the point of showing different opening hours from 1 May to 30 Sep anyway (is this what they are calling summer?) If so, should I really be adjusting them again?
So basically, would you take closing time on Friday in August to be 16:30UTC or 15:30UTC? I read it as 15:30UTC, but am I reading it correctly?
Colm
Agree that reading the French AIP / Atlas VAC hours is sometimes a bit confusing.
Anyway, you are right. Closing time is 15:30 UTC in summer, so that’s 17:30 local.
Of course, the airport doesn’t close at that time; it’s just the AFISO going home. But you know that.
Zurich also publishes the slot times in this unreadable format. I think the easiest way is to add one hour for the time zone (France = CET) which will give you local time and then ignore daylight saving because the remark SUM: -1 HR means no difference in local time based on daylight saving.
boscomantico wrote:
Anyway, you are right. Closing time is 15:30 UTC in summer, so that’s 17:30 local.
I concur.
This way of giving hours is confusing at first, but you get used to it pretty fast (every country has its specifics, otherwise EuroGA would be of no interest 
)
th trick I use is : take the times in the description, and add 1 hour for local time. It works in all cases.
So 1630 is written → 1730 local.
At that time, the AFIS leaves and the field becomes French-only. It is also written in the text section that you may extend the AFIS times for a late/night arrival but it will be probably expensive.
Have a good flight to France and Normandy ! for any questions, please ask !
Thanks guys. Much appreciated!
Looking at the AIP for LFAT, are the opening times local or UTC?
Unless otherwise stated, they are UTC (same in notams).
As Jujupilote/Vladimir mentioned, in French AIP default format just add one hour to get LT
One exception is LFAT, it seems 1800 utc for both summer and winter, so it closes at 2000LT summer and 1900LT winter but check notams for any hour overrides (Notams & AIP should be UTC), I will call ops/atc on the day away
