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Algeria + Tunisia - VFR permits

After my last year’s experience flying in Morocco, now I am looking forward to fly to Algeria

Has anyone experience flying there? I have selected Constantine as my first stop (Piper Malibu) but on their AIP it says they only have Jet A1 available, same applies for other small airports around the country.
They don’t provide any FBO or e-mail address so I don’t really know who to contact. Any idea?

Regards

Last Edited by speed at 27 Dec 08:48
Don't get too slow
LECU, Spain

We have been to DAAG in 2013, so the following information is quite old.

The Algerian AIP was online at that time, but it was French only. We needed a permit to enter Algeria and applied for it ourselves. It was quite a hassle to get it but eventually we succeeded. We didn’t contract handling in DAAG, there was no contact we could find. It took at least two hours to get Avgas after landing but it was cheap. The airport is huge and they sent one of the big busses to take us to the terminal. Fees weren’t cheap but still reasonable, a little less than 100 Euros all in IIRC (for a Mooney). We didn’t have visas but we were able to enter the country on a permis d’escale.

We entered Algeria from Fes in Morocco and continued to Djerba in Tunisia, DAAG was our only stop.

EDFM (Mannheim), Germany

I know a French pilot who as done this repeatedly, flying all over Algeria. Met him once.It doesn’t sound like the easiest of propositions, but can be done. French language proficiency is a must, not only on the ground but also in arranging the various services. This was a few years ago when I lived in Spain. If I can still find his email, I’ll PM it to you, lost contact with him.

terbang wrote:

We entered Algeria from Fes in Morocco and continued to Djerba in Tunisia, DAAG was our only stop.

I guess it is much easier to enter Algeria from Spain/France than from Morocco, especially from the south or western sahara routes (on these you also get some hassle even within Morocco): a friend of mine tried to set-up some gliding in Ouarzazate, he was told to change his base to Marrakesh or Beni-Mellal as they are on “safest distance” from the Moroccan-Algerian border

My understanding, you will need a flying permit for Algeria (but not for Morocco) but I guess the biggest issue will be Avgas for GA (there were 4 open aeroclubs in the country with 3 airworthy aircraft around)

Anyway good luck with it @speed , the VFR scenery from the air in Algeria would be very hard to beat (unfortunately, they don’t recognize ULMs/Gliders otherwise I would have been there for afternoon bimbles, but a Piper Malibu should be OK )

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Hello fellow pilots. Does anybody know about permits in Algeria and Tunisia for general aviation? I plan a longer airtrip, from Slovakia → South Italy → Tunisia → Algeria and back in March, using DA40 and few friends to pay for JET A (ha ha). I discovered that in Tunisia and Algeria, some kind of permit seems to be necessary by authorities, but Algeria AIP is only in French (!?). Anyone who has done similar trip in here? Or anybody who wants to join with another aircraft?

Any help appreciated! I don’t want to start from Palermo Italy and then being rejected in Tunis, or be denied to enter Algeria from Tunis after that. My plan is to land at DTTA (TUNIS/Carthage) and then to DTTZ (Tozeur–Nefta), and after that to fly over Sahara to El Goléa (or any other airport), then continue North and get back to Tunis.
Should take about 10 days, to enjoy the countries as well. Any ideas, helpful notes or advisories?


Logo is just for fun :-)

life is like a chess
LZIB, Slovakia

Hello, I am planning similar Trip in March 2019 (Tunisia + Algeria). If you have any new information about permits, please post it here or send PM.
I am little scared of some kind of entry denial from authorities, their AIP is only in French, which made me even more confused.

life is like a chess
LZIB, Slovakia

You have never previously flown in a country which requires flight permits for private GA flights, have you?

There are essentially two ways to get these permits. Either you obtain them on your own or you pay a permit agent to get these for you. In the letter case, there are permit agents spread all over the world and there are local ones. In any case, each of them will always say that they are specialized in country x (where x is the country you want to fly to). And in most cases, it will all fall apart just prior to the flight (delays in getting the permits, misunderstandings, no fuel organized, higher costs, etc.). So either way, it’s always a bit of a drama. But it’s also an adventure, in the positive sense. Getting them on your own is more work for you. Having an agent get these for you will cost usually about 200€ per permit. But it might be more. When you have the permit, it is very likely (but not inconceivable) that you will be rejected at the FIR boundary.

If you try to get the permit on your own, Tunisia should be doable in English. Algeria probably in French only. How much French do you speak? I mean, even if you get the Algeria permit through a third party, there will still be problems to deal with on the ground, which you migh not resolve in English.

I would expect high landing/handling fees in Algeria. Tunisia is more OK, according to a occasional reports.

What is the purpose of the trip? Just fun? Will you have fun with all the burocracy involved?

For what I know, Avgas is scarce in Tunisia and very scarce in Algeria. This is one problem. The other is that you will normally be unable to establish beforehand how much they will charge you for landing/handling/parking fees. Expect to pay a lot, and be happy if it turns out to be less.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 30 Dec 17:50
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Overflight and landing permits are generally needed outside of the Western world.
Try www.whiteroseaviation.co.uk or www.gasupportegypt.com

LPFR, Poland

boscomantico – thanks for helpfull answer. Firstly – yes, I am beginner (200hours), my flights have been just around Europe (Italy, Austria, Czech republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and home at Slovakia). So – yes, no experience outside of Europe. Trip purpose is solely an adventure with my friends, and yes, we can have fun including bureaucracy – we traveled from Vietnam back to Europe by car with EU registration plates, so we can handle some bureaucracy ;-) . Avgas is no factor, as we will fly DA40 NG, which happily runs on JET A. Will try those companies mentioned by loco (thanks!) for Algeria and will try to manage Tunisia myself. My French is nearly none to be honest, should rely on translators / luck for somebody English speaking. About landing / handling, I am calculating 70 eur in Tunisia (1,2 tons) and 100 eur for Algeria, I hope that should be enough. I calculated around 70 eur for Tunisia from their AIP, hope to be correct.

Can You please confirm, if this permits are usually per flight, or per aircraft / time? I would like to do a few hops in Tunisia and Algeria, to see more cities and airports…

life is like a chess
LZIB, Slovakia

Having a French/Arabic speaking pax or local contacts may help? Have tried the local aviation/aeroclub school scene? Personally, I would try the whole hassle myslef rather than via an agent and have a hassle free plan B…

Hint: for Algeria try contacting some famous arial pilots + photographers or historians ;)

An algerian student and the author of this did a trip in April 2018, try your luck:
http://www.aviation-algerie.com/av_legere.htm

For fuel logistics it should be easy if you fly on Mogas or JetA. For avgas, ask yourself a question: can I rent a C152 down there? Yes, then avgas is available and use rental price as proxy for Avgas price

If no, it will be tricky to find avgas and even if you find it will not be the cheapest…

Last Edited by Ibra at 30 Dec 19:04
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom
22 Posts
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