Switzerland is no exception in that regard – Geneva has dual French / Swiss status, but all the other airports you have to clear customd as well.
… Which is why I will base the aircraft in GVA.
This customs thing has become such a mess – they are basically killing cross border flying.
I have an idea I’d like to present to the french ministry in charge of customs AFTER the presidential election:
We could develop and make available to them a cloud based solution whereby pilots entering french airspace make a standardised customs declaration.
The idea is to give them equal or better visibility on in/outbound cross border flights vs road traffic plus full logging, database search and so on.
In an ideal world, the pilot side could be another feature of the outstanding Autorouter.eu
What do you think (let’s start a new thread!)
Flyingfish wrote:
I have an idea I’d like to present to the french ministry in charge of customs AFTER the presidential election:
The ones you need to convince will be the Swiss, not the French. The French said after Schengen came in force that Swiss GA would not need anything in France anymore, but the Swiss Oberzolldirektion intervened and told them they are wrong and Swiss GA needs customs! While that is technically correct, the French did not seem to care too much but after the Swiss intervened had no choice….
Geneva is a good choice if a bit pricy. But the dual customs is a real assett.
I have an idea I’d like to present to the french ministry in charge of customs AFTER the presidential election:
We could develop and make available to them a cloud based solution whereby pilots entering french airspace make a standardised customs declaration.
Be careful what you wish for. Currently you can fly around most of Europe without any notice or advance details. Introducing such a system might make it easier to enter and exit the Schengen zone, but it coudl quickly become a requirement for each country and then traveling within the Schengen zone would be much harder. Definately a backward step!
The idea is to give them equal or better visibility on in/outbound cross border flights vs road traffic plus full logging, database search and so on.
You indeed seem to be suggesting that it should indeed be required for each country and not just entering / exiting the Schengen zone. If you were successful, I suspect you’d have a GA lynch mob after you! 
What they can do no (inside Schengen) with zero hassle, would then require online forms and advance notification.
Anyway, why should the government have better visibility on cross border flights than they do on road traffic?
One view might be that Schengen prohibits such surveillance, so a “Euro GAR” would be possible to implement only for extra-Schengen traffic, and that would be great, with no downside.
Example: much of France, including all of Paris, is inaccessible from the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Croatia…
OTOH the “political forces” which (IMHO inexplicably) led to the withdrawal of customs/immigration-PNR facilities at approx 60 French airports might block this too.
OTOH if we see Schengen collapse (as has started to happen at a few places) a GAR would be preferred by most of the people affected, I am sure. The extra admin work is really minimal. It probably takes me 5 minutes.
I think Schengen should work for GA in much the same way as it does for CAT, i.e. no customs checks whatsoever. A EuroGAR would probably be beneficial for those entering Schengen from the outside, e.g. the UK.
Someone mentioned to me before that the GAR system in the UK only works because there are meant to be customs/immigration checks at the Schengen border.
Hence adopting a similar GAR system in Europe only increases the perception that people and goods may be smuggled under the cover, therefore it’s highly unlikely to happen.
The GAR pre-dates Schengen AFAIK. Also it is applicable to flights wholly outside Schengen e.g. UK to Croatia (etc etc etc).
Mooney_Driver wrote:
While that is technically correct, the French did not seem to care too much but after the Swiss intervened had no choice…
It is probably more due to France’s obligations under the EU customs union, to control goods entering (and leaving?) the EU customs area. What I don’t understand is why the EU (or France?) can’t make a rule as for small boats. That would mean you are free to cross the border where you want as long as you are not carrying anything that needs to be cleared by customs. The act of landing at any aerodrome in another customs area would be an implied customs declaration, as it is the case when you take the “green exit” at an airport. Customs officers can then still show up for random checks to see if this implied declaration was correct or not.
I think this is just because nobody has brought up the idea yet, contrary to small boaters who seem to have better political representation than GA pilots. The reason can hardly be that small boats crossing the Rhine or Lake Constance would be easier to control than airplanes requiring flight plans.
MedEwok wrote:
I think Schengen should work for GA in much the same way as it does for CAT, i.e. no customs checks whatsoever.
Please try to differentiate what you’re writing about in these discussions. Schengen = control of people, customs = control of goods. If we keep mixing these up, it will be very hard to have a meaningful discussion. But in whatever way you read that statement, it is not correct.
