This means flying within Greece needs to
This may have been asked before but can one avoid having to get a slot if the flight is “Y” i.e. a VFR arrival? I am thinking of LDSB to LGST here.
The only port of entry which has avgas and which is not coordinated is, IIRC, Ionina LGIO. Sitia LGST is now lost (unless you go VFR). And airports which have avgas are just Megara and Syros; neither is a PoE.
Peter wrote:
A 1000 euro fine for missing the slot by more than 20 mins?@petakas might want to know about this. It pretty well kills all GA flight to any slotted airport unless the flight is so short you can guarantee hitting the slot.
Peter first of all SLOTS are in place to be adhered to. They are for IFR flights. THEY ARE NOT FOR VFR FLIGHTS as documented in post “atmilatos12-Jun-18 16:30” with a quote from Greece AIP.
If one cannot fly IFR and adhere to +/-20 minutes of the expected (slotted) IFR arrival time then he/she should not be flying IFR which may as well mean canceling en route to VFR and just risking doing 1,2,5, whatever, holds per ATC instructions until ATC squeeze you in between IFR flights. With Greece’s weather there’s little to worry about this. For northern Europe autumn/winter/spring it may not be the same (risk). To be honest its not the SLOT that you have to be careful of as a pilot but the EOBT adherence. The EN ROUTE time rarely changes in IFR in ranges that can affect +/-20minutes. If you do your homework for the departure airport and keep the EOBT in slotted flights there is nothing to fear. For example you need to study expected taxi times, when to call for start up in relation to EOBT and other such issues which are ALWAYS documented in medium to large/busy airports’ briefings. If you keep the procedures and the +/-20 deviation is an outcome beyond your control/responsibility, nobody can fine you.
That may be true for short flights within Greece but not so easy with e.g. this one (note: planned for a VFR arrival):
when the wind may not be known to within say 20kt.
I respect your opinion but wholeheartedly disagree ;-)
OK; if they are merely looking for the flight planned ETA to be within the slot (which I am sure they are – we had this discussion last year re the Astepalea fly-in) then there is no problem. That is what Aero EDNY were doing too…
Departing on time from LDSB should also be possible.
petakas wrote:
If one cannot fly IFR and adhere to +/-20 minutes of the expected (slotted) IFR arrival time then he/she should not be flying IFR
The airlines can’t do it. They have a punctuality record of 40-60% most of the time. They can not cancel a flight because they drop out of a 20 minutes slot tolerance. How should we do it when only a change in wind can throw us of track by 30 minutes? Or you get an ATC slot, then what? Cancel the flight?
I know that slot violations are prosecuted but not in such every day ops ways but if they are systematical and willful. e.g. a carrier can’t get the slot he wants so he takes what slot he gets and flies the way he planned anyway. But for operational delays, this would be the end of not only GA but it would cause a huge mess also for the airlines.
This is in the latest AIRAC update.
Uhhh…my life now has become easier.P1ss of Cake (as Americans say).
Hm… maybe I forgot what it used to be but what’s the difference?
Probably it’s the same. I just posted it here as information to anyone interested.
