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San Sebastian (LESO)

Does anyone have any recent experience of San Sebastian please?

I thought it had a reputation as a GA-friendly airport, but I’m being quoted € 45 for landing and parking (we only want to stay for a couple of hours, not overnight) plus € 70 for mandatory handling*. That’s for minimum service, too. I asked, there’s no stretch limo into town…

Mmm, that’s a bit of a hit on a day jaunt from Bordeaux in a C172 to sample the local tapas!

*"Handling is mandatory if the plane is less than 3.5T
If you come from a no border airport handling is mandatory also.
The minimum service is only accompaniment.

Last Edited by Jojo at 02 Jan 18:17
Bordeaux

Well, I know that some airports in the south of Spain operate “handling mandatory if coming going to Africa” (customs!), but I wasn’t aware that some now also operate something like “handling mandatory if coming from or going to outside Schengen”. Could be, but I haven’t heard of that so far.

That said, AOPA Spain is fighting hard against the mandatory handling plague, but so far, it still seems to be becoming worse rather than better.

EDIT: Come to think of it, LESO by the way still has that limitation “customs only (no immigration)” in their AIP, so I wonder how having a handling agent can overcome that problem. So it may indeed be that they are saying "if you from any non-international airport (even inside Schengen/EU), then you need handling. That would be even more absurd.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 02 Jan 19:00
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

We’ve been to LESO in August 2013, so this information is almost one and a half years old. At that time handling was mandatory according to the AIP. We inquired by email (in Spanish, address from the AIP: [email protected]) and learned that handling was not mandatory for a SEP below two tons. We paid 13€ for the landing plus 1,56€ per day for parking, both plus 20% iva for our Mooney. We came from Madrid (LECU) and continued back to Mannheim (EDFM).

One rather funny story I do remember: we had the brilliant (and cheap) idea to take the public bus to town, spend the first two nights in San Sebastián, return to the airport by bus again and get a rental car for another two or three days. This way, we would not only save the money for the car but also for parking in town :-) The not so brilliant idea was to leave some baggage in the plane, which we would get once we had the rental car. Even though both of us speak Spanish and are licensed, there was no way to convince security that it was OK that one of us would walk over to the plane and get the damn little bag. After one hour of fruitless discussions we went to the ARO. But even they could not think of a way how this problem could be solved without a trick. The trick would be to file a VFR flight plan and print it out. This flightplan worked with security and we threw it away immediately after being back from the air side :-)

EDFM (Mannheim), Germany

Bordeaux to San Sebastian (France to Spain) is an intra Schengen flight, BTW.

I haven’t been to LESO since it became useless for a flight from the UK (c. 2010) but they used to be fairly cheap – about €30.

No idea what “no border airport” could possibly mean, but it can’t mean much in this case of a flight from/to France.

I have some notes on San Sebastian here and here

EDIT: terbang beat me to it

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

So it may indeed be that they are saying "if you from any non-international airport (even inside Schengen/EU), then you need handling. That would be even more absurd.

I think this is indeed what they are saying.

They also seem to be saying that handling is mandatory, wherever you come from, for aircraft less than 3.5T

The information below, and the prices quoted, came direct from the handling agent ([email protected]) this afternoon.
Handling is mandatory if the plane is less than 3.5T
If you come from a no border airport handling is mandatory also.
The minimum service is only accompaniment

Ah well, looks like they want to keep the riff-raff away from San Seb…!!

Bordeaux

Another thing: turkeys will never vote for xmas. So if you contact the handling agent, he will never tell you that handling is not mandatory.

So I would ignore the AIP (for now) and ignore the handler, and contact the airport directly (the OPR contact).

This is from Navbox Pro, and yes I note it says handling is mandatory, but it’s a start

Sometimes, the airport office doesn’t like dealing with aviation customers (in southern Europe especially, airports tend to be job creation schemes and aviation just creates work which they don’t want) so you won’t get the same attentive service which you get from a handler…

Contacting the aeroclub (if there is one) is another old trick.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I would ignore the AIP (for now) and ignore the handler, and contact the airport directly.

That’s where I started my investigations, by emailing the airport directly at [email protected]. They confirmed that handling is mandatory and sent me the (wrong) email address for the handling agent…

Reply from the airport:

According to AIP AD2-LESO1-4 HANDLING SERVICES AND FACILITIES, agreement with handling agent is mandatory for General and Commercial operations. Due to this requirement, you have to contract handling services prior to accept your operation.
__
Handling Service Company IBERIA
PHONE: +34 943668519
EMAIL. [email protected]

I can’t find any mention of a local air club. Even if I could, I’m a bit wary about flying into San Seb with my fingers crossed just because the local club says I can…

So we may just have to go elsewhere…

Bordeaux

I’m a bit wary about flying into San Seb with my fingers crossed just because the local club says I can

I totally agree… but I was thinking about actually “flying to the aeroclub” i.e.

  • you agree with the aeroclub to visit them
  • immediately after touchdown you ask for taxi instructions to the aeroclub (so the handler – who will have heard the arrival on the radio and will be on his way out – doesn’t get a chance to grab you)
  • you park at the aeroclub

This is a standard trick. I paid £10 at Norwich instead of £50.

The other one is doing the same with a maintenance company… the Bournemouth handler (not a description I would use, for the “services” rendered) got a bit sick of it and started asking for details of the maintenance you were having done

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Don’t think it will work (even if I could find an aeroclub), because handling has to be arranged before flying. No way around it, as far as I can see. Unless @terbang can come up with another cunning plan?!

According to AIP AD2-LESO1-4 HANDLING SERVICES AND FACILITIES, agreement with handling agent is mandatory for General and Commercial operations. Due to this requirement, you have to contract handling services prior to accept your operation.

Bordeaux

What Peter is saying is that often the aeroclub is considered a handling service by the airport.

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