In the absence of concrete info on this, Italy has yet again made itself into a joke… after the luxury tax fiasco which is still there but seems to not apply unless you park there a long time (months).
Chflyer
A good piece of information to know. I was planning to route via Italy to Malta but after reading this I might change the route. I don’t want to get ripped off for a start and get caught in more Italian beaurocracy if I can avoid it. Any more info would be greatfully received if anyone has any!
Due to the unlikelihood of the health authorities being able to control every flight from France, Germany, Austria, etc to every one of the hundreds of small airfields, my suspicion is that this will only be applied to the larger airports with customs. And even then, anecdotal evidence is that it is very arbitrary. It would indeed be nice to find some sort of official info like a NOTAM or AIC. Perhaps someone with the Italian AOPA knows more.
chflyer wrote:
Has anyone on this forum direct experience with that? It is apparently related to the current Zika virus media frenzy.
I plan to use this form for my flight.
It’s hard to find avgas in southern Italy. Brindisi doesn’t have any for sure.
A lot of people have looked into this because southern Italy would be a handy point to enter Greece. But with no fuel…
Probably the nearest avgas to Brindisi is Corfu!
Peter, what are your limitations wrt an airfield? Does it need to be IFR even in southern Italy?
As I mentioned above, we have had a positive response (for 12 GA aircraft including a DA42) from LINB Melpignano/Corte which is not very far from Brindisi (10nm from Lecce). They asked to let them know in advance how much fuel is needed and type (avgas/Jet-A1) but they confirmed that they can supply it. The runway is 3’232ft and earthen which shouldn’t have a rain problem in this part of the world. The short pirep in eddh.de (in German) is very positive too.
We are now planning to stop here on our around Italy at the end of July.
Vince
I was just referring to avgas.
But, yes, potentially, once you paid for the IR 
you want an IFR option, even as an alternate. And an alternate where there is no fuel (i.e. you are stuck there until you can arrange for avgas drums to be delivered (€xxxx) and get permission from the airport to transfer the fuel) is not a good alternate.
Also Italy has a long history of airfields which have avgas but are not allowed to sell it to visitors. The normal solution is for a club member to fill up your plane while pretending to fill his (like in French TOTAL-only aeroclubs someone might pretend to fill his plane, but he is not breaking any law in that case) but you aren’t going to get that special deal unless you can speak Italian – because all “special deals” in human interaction require a certain level of familiarity with the other person, especially if they are illegal.
The problem with advance checking whether an airfield will sell avgas is that usually they don’t reply to communications – except a phone call in Italian when there is someone there.
The bottom line is that you need either local knowledge, or you need to do more due diligence
But I get criticised for writing this stuff, by the “live and let live” part of the pilot community
Otherwise, to answer your Q about “what are your limitations wrt an airfield?” it is 500m tarmac, or 800m grass verified as very good recently by somebody I know
When I flew to Brindisi two years ago I refuelled at Salerno on the way back which is about an hour away. Very expensive though – I recall paying around €3,50/ltr. It does have an instrument approach. Another option could be Tivat in Montenegro across the Adriatic which at the time had some of the cheapest Avgas in Europe.
Brindisi was a bit of a hassle. You need handling and there is a little too much Italian officialdom checking and rechecking documents etc.
The disinsection requirement appears to be aimed at public transport:
Peter,
We’ll likely use LINB on our trip, in which case I’ll give a pirep afterwards. But we inquired by email (not phone) to both LINB and LIDF and received replies in good English within 24hr that were very positive and welcoming. I certainly didn’t get the impression that we would be supplied out of drums! I expect the request to indicate amount needed was to ensure that there was enough on hand to meet our need for 12 aircraft arriving all at once.
I remain optimistic that there are places providing a better experience than you relate.
Re IFR, LINB is only 10nm from Lecce LIBN which is a large airport with IFR approaches and departures, which should suffice with anything more than a minimal ceiling for a break-off to LINB, given the flat countryside.
Vince
