Today was manic and with waiting for avgas (the bowser had to be refilled) and getting something to eat etc I did not make it to one “pilot dinner” in the town. But we had a very nice dinner with 2 other friends at Hagnau where we are staying.
It is disgraceful how EDNY kills your carefully prebooked arrival slots the instant they see the inbound flight plan cancelled. That means that if you use a flight plan filing service which has a facility to bring forward your FP (which involves cancelling and re-filing) your EDNY slot will get killed. It is a completely over the top aggressive and arrogant way to treat intelligent people like herd animals.
As is the way they suspend (in effect, cancel) your FP if the ETA falls outside your arrival slot. They never used to do that. And their slot booking website still showed the slot as active even after I got their automated email telling me they cancelled it! Fortunately, using the OPR number for EDNY (in Navbox) I got through to the slot booking office and they reinstated the slot. The only way I knew of that suspension was from the Shoreham tower who phoned me. The only other time I was treated like a piece of ***t in this way was by Zaragoza in Spain who cancelled my inbound flight plan there because (allegedly but falsely) I had not obtained PPR. Actually the PPR was obtained right in front of me by the ARO at Granada…
Then, because the FP got cancelled and refiled, I got hit with a 57min delay from Eurocontrol (something to do with Zurich, I believe, so maybe another finger-up from EDNY) 
I don’t know why they bother with all these stupid slot measures because the inbound traffic was very low. Maybe one plane every 10 mins. The approach controller (Swiss Radar) was totally professional, as before. Nowadays far fewer people visit the show, compared to e.g. 2007. Parking was very well organised, hard surface, no problem, though a long wait for fuel (best part of an hour).
Tomorrow and Saturday should be fine to meet up with people during the day, and to check out the latest paintwork on the latest offerings from Cirrus and Diamond (listed in alphabetical order, you understand) 
Saturday night is the EuroGA dinner – see earlier in this thread. We have 19 booked for that currently
Peter, i have a friend, LH captain, who flies to Aero almost every year, and always without a slot … and he was never denied a landing.
Good that you made it!
Hope to see you tomorrow.
who flies to Aero almost every year, and always without a slot
That is what I was told in previous years, but the way they now wipe out your flight plan if you don’t hit the arrival slot (plus or minus some allowance I guess) suggests they are more arrogant about it now. Let’s face it, without a valid and active flight plan you can’t even fly there! Well, from within Germany you probably can…
I should be around the show for the two days. The wx is not good so not much point in doing a day trip on a boat to Switzerland
Enroute to Friedrichshafen yesterday, I heard Langen Radar having a lengthy conversation with someone with slot problems. Langen asked them to divert to their alternate because Friedrichshafen would not accept them. The pilot insisted he had a slot and Langen replied that he had a slot for Zürich FIR (?!?!?) and not Friedrichshafen. I was then handed over to another sector so I don’t know what happened in the end.
Anyway, things were rather hectic at Friedrichshafen when I landed at 18:58 LT. That was right on my 18:40-19:00 slot which I was quite happy about as there was very strong (30+ kt) winds almost at right angle to my track. In that case minor differences in wind direction compared to the forecast can make a big difference in ground speed.
Approach first asked me to keep my speed up om final and then to slow down! That has never happened to me before… Tower cancelled the landing clearance for some VFR traffic a mile ahead of me and turned them away because they couldn’t make the runway in time. The Zürich controller was very good.
I and another guy from my club are also staying in Hagnau, btw.
plus or minus some allowance I guess
The allowance is actually close to zero. I got 5 minutes CTOT because my flight plan arrived 3 minutes before the slot window, with regulation ID LSAZAR16, and that was with a very much non-busy ARFA sector (Achim’s comment was that it was a 50% part time job)
Approach first asked me to keep my speed up om final and then to slow down! That has never happened to me before…
This is standard practise at all busy airports and this is how they maintain separation on the ILS. There can be a lot of airplanes on the ILS and if the pilots agree, they can be vectored onto it with a short final (I believe minimum 4NM).
When I arrived on Thursday 1000Z, there was not much traffic at all. I was vectored onto the ILS without any delays and Swiss Radar was not busy at all, maybe one message every minute. I was early so I flew at 100KTAS and when I offered I can 160KTAS the answer was “no need, you’re the only one”.
They could easily operate this airport with 5x more traffic and they could do away with the stupid slot system (or use it as something tentative and not care if people don’t hit it, it will even out anyway). They can vector plenty of planes around and they can also easily put 10 of them in a holding.
I’m very unimpressed about how they handle it, effort invested versus outcome. Send them all on training to the US.
Peter,
Something else must have gone wrong in your case. ATC (at least in central Europe) does not cancel FPLs due missing airport slots. At least I can’t believe it.
As you said, that would mean penalizing those with a filed flightplan and letting those without one (the majority) pass.
We would have heard of other such cases if that were the normal practice, because, from experience, many people’s flightplan does not correspond with their slot.
Will you now write for the next ten years “EDFY will cancel your flightplan if you don’t have a matching airport slot”?
EDNY has done the same to another pilot today, so …
I think its time that the Alphabet organizations had a heart to heart with Aero organizers, Vendors, and finally to the EDNY folk.
They expect everyone else to be “professional” when they themselves are not. How about giving them a slot time to start their cars when leaving for the day and obstructing their exit.
Having been to a number of Airshows over the past 30 yrs Its a challenge to get all those aircraft in before the show starts. But those controllers are good. Oshkosh and Sun and Fun. While you need a slot for IFR arrivals you dont need one for VFR. Also they are very helpful if the slot gets buggered up for whatever reason.
I’m not at the show but the coolest exhibit must surely be the BJJR Bulldog!
