As it looks, Sky Services is history at LIQS. The airport is currently closed. Nobody knows who will take over the operation of the airfield.
In 2015, Sky Service won the tender to operate the airport, against Delta Aerotaxi. Seems like Delta went to court and in May, the court has decided that they have won the tender under false pretenses, namely an underestimation of the costs of renovating the airport and an overestimation of the possible yields. Normal business I would say.
Italian article here.
Yes, they confirmed they will organize immigration upon request. Not just for groups, but also for individual aircraft. Actually, this is possible at any airfield in Italy, and doesn’t actually have to involve the handling crew. The pilot can do this himself. It’s just a matter of having the right contacts at the responsible authorities.
We have a previous LIQS report on our database here.
@BerlinFlyer I wonder whether another one would be worth doing, to update?
They have officially no immigration or customs but recently there was a TBM fly-in for which these were obviously arranged… somehow. @davidfabry might know.
@EuroFlyer: So my experiences are as follows:
I’ll definitely come back again. It’s just sad to see the decommissioned VOR for the IFR approach resting at the field. Let‘s hope that there are better times for this airfield. The guy told me that they want to make the runway longer (which is technically no problem) – but as usual the local people are against it. As if there way anything else in this region than tourism … Anyway.
@EuroFlyer all right, let‘s see what happens :) I filed IBRID (which is right next to KUGIX) … let‘s see. I‘ll report.
they give you a frequency, and they open the flight plan with Grosseto Approach. Problem was, instead of the filed IR pickup waypoint KUGIX they sent me first VFR hard to the west, then, still in steep climb because of the terrain, they asked me to change to Firenze, who gave me the IFR clearance, essentially flight planned route, and KUGIX again back full east. Zig zag. That’s seemingly what happens when you’re VFR. Apart from that, no issues.
@EuroFlyer Yep, the descent felt a bit Pearl Harbor Style. Anyway. Looking forward to my departure :-) does the tower get you an ifr clerance or do you have to pick everything up in the air?
haha – yes same here, got the car driven to my plane, like in a US movie. Service is very friendly and professional. And Avgas is 1,80€ – also nice.
They like to keep you over Florence quite high, same result, quick descent and I cancelled IFR when I had the field in sight and did a combat approach :)))
Controllers in Italy otherwise totally easygoing, except at the departure they zigzagged me a bit…
Haha, spotted – nice :-)
Yes, I also must admit, super easy approach (even though one must insist with the controllers for a decent, I had to go for 1300fpm in the end) – and despite the high fees, the service is top notch. Immediate refuel service at the gas station (if you have one, bringing a BP card makes things quicker), easy parking with super friendly service. One of the guys then drove my rental car (which I preordered with AVIS) directly in front of my plane and escorted me the way out of the airport. That was US-style top notch service. I was very pleasantly surprised.