I’m back from my short trip to Liguria, so, as requested by @Aviathor, a PIREP on Genova (LIMJ) airport.
In short: great views on approach and departure, always (almost, at least) great weather, and a flawless ground handling experience.
The first and most important part of making it a good experience is properly getting PPR for parking. I can’t repaeat it often enough. Italian airports simply want you to let them know in advance. If you do a proper booking beforehand, they will love you. If you come unannounced, they will hate you. As simple as that. Send an email (as per the AIP) and they (in this case: the Genoa airport “duty manager”) will usually reply within minutes. Except in very rare cases (Monaco Grand Prix or in high summer), there will usually not be a problem with parking.
Genoa ATC is accomodating with GA of all sorts. No problems whilst airborne.
Some very friendly ladies are doing the ground handling.Thanks to my email, they had already prepared our handling note beforehand.
We had to wait for a refueller for about 20 minutes, but that was still within acceptable limits. 1,94€ per litre. Ideally, pay with the AirBP card (because that goes quickest), but credit cards are fine as well.
On departure, no hassles at all. Normal (quick) security checks (there is a separate entrance / security checkpoint for GA, so no queing). Paying the invoice takes 5 minutes. Then they’ll bring you out to the aircraft and that’s it.
Genoa itself is a bit special as a city. Not really a beauty, but unique. A day or so is enough I’d say. Anyway, Genoa airport is the only decent option if you want to go to either Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino (about 30km east of Genoa) or to Cinque Terre (about 80 km east of Genoa). We did the former on our second day (moving around by train). Great. Both Santa Margherita/Portofino and Cinque Terre should only be visited outside the tourist season.
Airport fees: not a cheap place, but not outrageous either. For a two-ton aircraft, two days of parking and no pax, we paid 93€. There are two important tricks: 1) If the lady in the C office likes you, you can get away without paying any pax fees (even though ENAV officially says that on a “normal” private flight, there can only be one crew). Best is to write this already in your booking email (“Crew: x, Pax: 0”). They will then copy this onto your handling note and, if you are lucky, no more questions will be asked. Each passenger normally costs about 20€ or so extra, so if you have say 3 pax, this can push the invoice total quite a bit higher. The second important thing is to make sure that they don’t put any towing/pushback fee on the invoice. Usually, with small SEPs/MEPs, this shouldn’t happen, but double check.
A few pics:
Thanks boscomantico. Trying to put it in my favourites (bookmarks), but cannot find the symbol. Only “report”
This was the home for Piggio Aerospace for decades, which makes it holy ground.. 
Thanks Bosco, very useful report.
Adam, you need to get over the love affair with obscure aircraft types!
Mustang canned, Evo in production — what’s the exact definition of an obscure aircraft type again? I am sure Adam can give you a quick rundown why it’s cheaper to fly an Evo from London to Ibiza than taking Easyjet.
It’s good to see that such a big airport is acessible to small GA and carries AVGAS.
A few pics from Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino:
I also knocked up a little video of our outbound flight to Genoa (from Aschaffenburg, near Frankfurt):
achimha wrote:
It’s good to see that such a big airport is acessible to small GA and carries AVGAS.
Yes, but the price (1,94) is unusually cheap for an airport of this size in Italy, probably without tax? Did Bosco present an AOC?
What AOC?
Needless to say, if it hadn’t been the fully taxed price, I would have said so.
Actually, many of the Italian Air BP airports are in this 2,00€ price range right now. Firenze, Bologna, Perugia, etc. But check again before going!
Many people forget or fail to factor in fuel prices into the total equation when chosing their destinations. I do it. As an example, this fuel price actually makes Genoa an overall cheaper affair than the much praised Albenga (LIMG) airport. There, you pay not all that much less in terms of fees (60€), but then get a 2,45€ fuel price on top. Do your own math.
boscomantico wrote:
Actually, many of the Italian Air BP airports are in this 2,00€ price range right now.
Interesting, that means fuel in Italy has become cheaper than in Germany at bigger airports? That was the other way around recently and one reason for me to avoid Italy. I have seen Genua three or four times from the air to my way to/from Corsica. Next time I will plan a stop there, thank you for the info.
