Thanks for the pirep, we need take more Euros for beers now !
Prices have gone up all over France.
Beer has always been expensive (at least in most restaurants, tourist bars and hotels)
as is coffee.
Otherwise it depends where you go. A bottle of beer at our club house is €1.25.
€22 is even now expensive for a hamburger unless it is a very good home made one.
I would expect and get,at lunchtime, a 3 course meal with wine (a house carafe) for less than that sort of money. Perhaps, it is why very few French pilots fly to LFAT.
pilotrobbie wrote:
Went back last night, prices are horrendous in Le Touquet to eat out now. 22EUR for a Burger?
Robbie, you should try this place, half the price and twice as good
A class meal in France is easily €25-30, plus any desserts. Been like that for years. Same in the UK actually; I live opposite what used to be called a “BMW Z4 pub” (not sure what the current car would be) and a meal for 4 would easily be £150. Almost never go there… the food is mostly stodge.
Do I worry? No. Much less than the avgas, and one has already saved some 2 digits by doing the most pleasant walk from the airport into town. Le T is a wonderful destination which does tick all the boxes really, despite being the butt of p1sstaking by the 5hr/year UK GA chat site crowd 
Perhaps, it is why very few French pilots fly to LFAT.
One sees a fair few F-regs there, on a nice day, but it is true there is relatively little aeroclub type activity at any of the “huge” French airports like Le Touquet, Cherbourg, La Rochelle, etc The main volume of club pilots flies mostly elsewhere – grass I assume. Deauville is one exception I recall.
Anyway, if you keep eating burgers (at any price) the fix for that will cost you roughly 10k Your medicals then go up from low 3 digits to 4 digits; actually nearly all those who get one give up flying immediately.
gallois wrote:
Perhaps, it is why very few French pilots fly to LFAT
Lot of people find it very expensive…from France you pay 28E (previously 24E) and from UK you pay 42E (previously 36E), I never understood the price delta? and it’s not listed on their price brochure (I never cared and beside one can claim Avgas duty on full aircraft tanks, there is enough to make anyone happy)
Peter wrote:
Le T is a wonderful destination which does tick all the boxes really
I fully agree there are not that many lovely and welcoming places where you tend to consistently visit more than one time…
I tend to pay €16 for an excellent 3 course lunch at a restaurant near LFFK. The chef has a Michelin rosette.
I pay a similar amount following back short walk from Brest Bretagne airport (not the airport restaurant.)
The trick is to ge for the menu, especially the menu d’ouvrier.
Le Touquet, even with the French club discount is thought too expensive for French pilots especially with Abbeville and Berck sur Mer being so near.
But you are wrong if you think that La Rochelle does not get a lot of visitors by GA from all over France. And many airfields have hard surfaces, although French pilots don’t tend to worry either way. But I will admit to get the true value of flying in France it is beneficial to have some French language knowledge.
I had no issues with LFAT itself, that’s gone up slightly since my last visit but yes it’s a great place to visit. I’d highly recommend it has been 3 times now and stayed twice overnight.
My comments are more on what happened here in London after lockdowns, which has seemingly now been reversed, especially as a lot of the City Bods won’t pay £9 a pint. It makes me wonder if the French will slowly reverse their prices or keep them high once demand wains.
IMO I don’t think the price of beer in the places you possibly go will go down again.
Fuel maybe but not the price of a pint. Although a pint is usually only served in bars with high prices.
gallois wrote:
IMO I don’t think the price of beer in the places you possibly go will go down again.
Fuel maybe but not the price of a pint. Although a pint is usually only served in bars with high prices.
Few places in London went up to £8-9 a pint, having been just under the £6 a pint region unless it’s Wetherspoons. Quickly prices didn’t take long to go back down to under £6 a pint. Presume this is down to the sheer demand after lockdown and prices went up so the price of beer went up.
I noticed this recently when a place I used to visit charged £5.90 for a Camden Hells again, was £8 post-COVID lockdowns.
Belgian beers in France are particularly expensive, except perhaps for Leffe. French beers are less expensive especially on draft or “pression”.
The Belgian beers are fashionable which is possibly why they are more expensive. But they were expensive by comparison, long before Covid.
Then there is the question of whether you sit at a table to drink your beer/coffee or whatever or whether you stand at the bar. It is often cheaper to stand at the bar.
But mainly it is where you drink, as I have said. It will cost more at a beach bar than one in a side street in the same town.
A beer on the Champs Elysees will cost a lot more than one in Vanves or even St Germain du Pré which in itself fashionable, thanks to the likes of Picasso.🙂
