Trip to Channel Islands and UK - customs, flight plans, etc.

That article is from 2013.

But certainly not an ARO.

It is very simple: largely, only the UK “allows” direct filing. All other European countries still use indirect filing, where the flightplan must initially be sent to an ARO/central AIS, which checks it over and then distributes it to all interested parties. The reasons are partly laid out in the linked post.

That is more the point of it. Whether it needs or is allowed to be sent via AFTN or not is a minor sidenote.

I don’t understand the difference.

The UK offers the AFPEX tool, which gives direct AFTN access (and that is unique in Europe, for ordinary private pilots) but the user still has to do the addressing, which for VFR is not trivial. I vaguely recall that later versions of the AFPEX Java app had some support for the addressing rules, but it would amaze me if they implement the AIPs from all of Europe, within the Java app, and have some unix hacker person at Swanwick keeping them all current.

Whereas if a pilot is using say EuroFPL then he just needs to enter the departure and destination and their server will generate all the required addressing, using a database of rules which they compiled from the various AIPs. SD use EuroFPL, while EasyVFR use Rocketroute (and RR does what EuroFPL does).

And the above is the same for every country in Europe. If a German pilot can supply AFPEX with a UK address (perhaps a “temporary” one ) he can get the AFPEX account and use it for flight plans, worldwide.

BTW, KBLIHAEX is an airport. KBLI is Bellingham International in the US. HAEX is an AFTN gateway, one of many in the US which are offering a subscription service for AFTN access.

This is a screenshot from EuroFPL. You just type the stuff in

Timothy wrote:

The first thing you need to know is that the Channel Isles are not in the UK, nor in the EU. They are independent as far as Customs go.

While the Channel Islands are not in the EU, they are in the EU customs area. They are not in the EU VAT area. Since Customs is also in charge of collecting VAT (in addition to customs duties) on imports, one does indeed have to present oneself to Customs… but not for customs!