Just how bad is Faro LPFR?

Fly to Portimao LPPM, it’s something like 30 minutes drive. Nice little airport avgas and jet available.
From what they tell me last year, you can’t park more than 2 days in Faro during summer. And expensive landing/parking and mandatory handling…

Romain

Patrick wrote:

As as segment within the Carcassonne trip, I’m considering Faro to visit or possibly even pick up my dad, who stays there a lot during the summer.

I’m only finding rather bad reviews. Can anyone confirm? Preferably, has anyone made a good experience with Faro, recently?

There don’t seem to be any sensible alternatives in the Algarve region.

I was there a couple years ago (probably 2010). It was a REAL pain in the ass !! A bit more detail:
I wanted to do Porto (LPVL) → Faro → (return), 2 days to see some friends. This obviously at the very height of touristy season. I had planned to land at Portimao, but delays on departure (due to my passengers being late!) meant that they would be closed an apparently out of hours wouldn’t be possible.
I had already inquired with Faro (I am native in Portuguese), and some very nice operations manager told me handling wasn’t mandatory (that probably they’ll try to tell me that but the AIP didn’t mention it – and “Don’t tell them I told you that”). Had an estimate of the costs, which were VERY reasonable (parking, passenger tax etc would come around 20 euros for 2 day!).

Off we go, I have a flight plan, and during the flight ATC tells me Faro asked to make sure we knew they had no AVGAS (clue #1 that it was probably a bad idea). – I knew that, and went and landed (my first landing in a real commercial Airport actually).

On arrival, we were directed to taxi and park near the Private Jets (in the Club’s old PA28). Asked which handling company we had picked, I said “Negative, no handling”. They said we needed a bus and that would cost some amount of euros (70-80 perhaps). We got on the bus, and then once inside they wanted to check some documents. I wasn’t familiar with the documents you need in portugal (or really, anywhere, I had always rented and never been asked that). They couldn’t find some document, I tried to talk to the poeople of the club (who said the document they were asking for no longer existed).
Then they wanted to make us go through the regular customs (one of my friend had forgotten his ID!) We basically were free about 1h after having parked and locked up the plane!)

On return, less time wasted, and turns out that the operations manager I had talked to was on duty, and took us with his car to the plane, after paying the small fees. Once at the car, I asked about paying the fee for the bus on the previous day, and he said “forget about it”.
Departure wasn’t too painful, and we did a very short flight to Portimao, where we refueled with the british guy. They didn’t take cards, and fortunately I still had my portuguese account and was able to pay doing a bank transfer.

I think in the meantime Faro might have put mandatory Handling, I’ll check later if someone wants.

Portimao is good and very welcoming. Just be careful with performance if you have to depart on the easterly runway. It gets very interesting in a Piper Chieftain!

Faro – lacks soul and about everything else.

Dave_Phillips wrote:

Faro – lacks soul and about everything else.

One thing it certainly does not lack is Brits abroad

I enquired about flying from there last year and got nowhere. Contradictory information abound, which from experience, is the helpful hint. Walk away. I eventually did my flying out of Cais Cais, whom I found very helpful and accommodating. I appreciate it is nowhere near Faro, but you can always get a feel for the overall experience to be had, within the first contact for information.

There seems to be very little info around on Faro so thought I would add to this old thread. I am thinking of a trip there soon and wanted find out about handoing and charges there.

Contacted OMNI who seem to be the main handing agent and got this response:

Kindly note required quote for an PA46T aircraft, MTOW 02T at Faro International Airport – LPFR:
Handling: 85,00€
Airport Handling Concession fee of 4.5%: 3.83€
Ramp Transport: 36.50€
Landing fee: 24,75€
Terminal Control fee: 17,44€
Parking p/ day: 42,00€ (first 90mins on the ground free of charge)
Disbursement fee: 10%
The referred above fees are subject to the Portuguese legal VAT tax of 23%, if applicable.
Respectfully with your kind confirmation of quote, please kindly send the following for Ground Handling coordination:
Aircraft documentation (AOC – if applicable; Registration Certificate; Noise Certificate; Radio License; Insurance Certificate; Airworthiness Certificate and Airworthiness Review certificate)

While certainly not cheap it was less than I feared. The bit that gets up my nose though is the requirement to submit a whole raft of aircraft docs ahead of the flight.

Indeed. I would ask them what the hell they need it for. Aircraft type, MTOW and operator details should be enough.

boscomantico wrote:

I would ask them what the hell they need it for. Aircraft type, MTOW and operator details should be enough.

They might need noise certificate and ownership certificate to relate it to operator somehow. And sometimes, especially in case of PA46, they can be suspicious about 1999 kg MTOW and require aircraft documentation confirming that.

Sure, but it‘s one thing that virtually all bigger airports in southern Europe are PN/PPR these days. It‘s another matter making every such case a matter of sending a bunch of documents and getting them vetted. These things only happen because those people having absolutely nothing to do all day, and because they think that pilots have dispatch staff that likewise has nothing else to do all day.

It has to be sufficient to inform them what IS the AC type, what IS the operator, and what ARE the operator details.