As I said I landed in LESO today coming from Zurich. I filed a FPL and then called the number on the Jeppesen handbook. A nice guy from the firefighters guided me out with no handling and nothing. He talked to a guardia civil lady and she didn’t bother checking any of my documents. I was out in the taxi after 10 minutes. I will see tomorrow if everything was right as I will head on to Cascais.
Btw, this trip got its initiation from reading some reports here in the forum.
My experience in LESO has been very good. I arrived from zurich IFR for a one night stay and I paid Eur 30 altoghether. No Iberia handling.
In Cascais I got harrassed by the manager of Omni Handling. She called me several times on my mobile and I told her I didn’t want handling. When I landed surely she was there waiting for me filling my head about the new procedures blablabla and sucked me in as I just wanted to leave quickly. She quoted Eur 50 I will see. They have been very aggressive and stubborn. I called the airport and informed the manager about these unacceptable practices. I will have to pay hope others will learn from my mistake of giving in.
and sucked me in as I just wanted to leave quickly
Standard behaviour of handlers. They get fed up with GA pilots trying to avoid them 
They have (had?) a great one at Bournemouth EGHH, who wanted to issue a PPR number. It was 2 guys in a portacabin, just taking money (not a lot; maybe 20-30 quid) for doing nothing. For a time, ATC went along with this, asking for the PPR number but later got fed up with it. You still need to pay them though, unless you are going for “maintenance” but they ask you what sort of maintenance you are having because a lot of people started to fly to some company (which they had an amicable relationship with) to avoid this stuff.
Somehow, airport managers are vulnerable to fast talking wide boys who assure them that they will take over the hassle of handling planes.
I am back from Cascais and I have liked the place and its surroundings. Just to finish up with my experience at the airport: send any handler away and don’t bother listening to them. Omnihandling really is a rip off. As I said I was sucked in as the manager quoted 50 Eur and upon my departer I was presented a bill of EUR 200 for a TB21 and 5 days parking. I called the airport manager and complained loudly. I was offered to pay the bill there and the cost ended up being 80 eur. Omni had invented other items that increased the bill by an additional 60 Eur on top of their Eur 50 for handling.
Other than the handling my experience has been a good one.
Quick thread update from a visit on the 4th May 2016.
Limited Parking
We PPR for parking by email four days before… Reply within 30mins confirming space reserved.
It appears there are only 4 spaces for light GA. A1 – A4. The remainder or the apron is used for larger PA46, TBM and BizJets.
Ramp Check on Arrival
We were ramp checked on arrival. The policeman introduced himself politely, spoke perfect English and explained what he needed to do. He was a pilot himself! He took my licence, passport and aircraft file to his office while I unpacked the plane. 10mins later he was back smiling and said everything was in order and thanked us. He then showed us out through a turn-style to the left of the GA ramp.
Landing, Parking and Other Charges
We stayed for 4 days the total charge was 133Euro. Copy invoice bellow…. I must admit I don’t really understand the breakdown. Taking into account the location and limited parking I didn’t think the cost was too awful (MTOW 1633kgs). We arrived VFR from France so no customs / police required or requested. Also requested no handling. We didn’t take fuel, but AVGAS is available.
Getting back airside was fairly simple there is an office between the GA terminal and the police office. Showing the passport and licence got us back onto the apron, then we walked airside to the GA Terminal who produced the invoice quickly. There is a small briefing room with a PC etc to the right of the GA terminal with a WC as well. ATC were perfect on arrival and departure.
Great place to stay for a few days break. A taxi into town was Euro 20 each way.
My first proper flight abroad was the Biarritz, in 2003. I busted a French nuclear TRA on the way back, and 5 months later the DGAC demanded that the CAA busts me for it, despite them giving me a radar service at the time, so it was an adventure in more ways than one
But I paid about €10 for everything, including about 5 days’ parking. Times change… and (like many other airports) I bet Biarritz has very little GA now because only one-off travellers will pay that sort of money.
I hope I don’t get a surprise letter like that! I went through the danger areas both ways with clearance!
GA wise there were F reg planes doing circuits (Robins) and an F Reg TB20 arrived just before we departed with an English pilot.
Terrible. Even without any parking, it would have been 100 Euros. Used to be a lot less, even recently.
The 50% markup on the handling fee was probably because it was a weekend. Still, robbery.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be sure the invoice is correct. It’s so totally out of line with previous reports…
It didn’t seem awful compared to birmingham and liverpool this year!
Sure, others are even more expensive. But still: we are effectively “losing” far too many airports for regular light GA usage, by them going from say 40 to 100 Euros.
Understandbly, people one a one-off trip will say “it wasn’t all that bad”, but lets face it: it is quite expensive. Bordeaux went this way (almost zero GA treaffic nowadays), and now it seems like the same happens at Biarritz.
P.S. The fees and charges document is here, but as usual, it is hard to make sense out of it, i.e. to understand what positions are automatic and which aren’t.
