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Flying to Kastelorizo LGKJ

I remember a wellknown Greek pilot landed at my local Intl airport with his C182 and requested to self supply with mogas from the nearby service station ,since avgas was discontinued.The usual suspects strongly denied that.Therefore he declared that he would occupy the parking position for EVER!.Not much time passed and they called me to go to his assistance with MY private mogas tank and let him go to h**l.

LGGG

In Kastellorizzo 2 years ago we filled two petrol tank in a service station and refueled the plane with those .
With no ladder we used the fire truck to get over the wing .
It was 6 am , we were the only plane in the apron and i don’t think it’s a recommended procedure :-)

Pegaso airstrip, Italy

For what it’s worth, SkyServ have sent me another invoice for transiting Athens twice in September 2017 and Kastelorizo LGKJ in September 2018. I’ve told them I paid the invoices in full at the time. Their reply was that those invoices were estimates!

Ha!

Spending too long online
EGTF Fairoaks, EGLL Heathrow, United Kingdom

Tell them to place the invoices somewhere warm

This is the reason I now keep all airport paperwork for ever. I used to keep it for a few months but that wasn’t enough.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Me too. I figure if it takes three Skyserv employees approximately three quarters of an hour to prepare one invoice – as happened to me at Ioannina recently – then it must be worth keeping!

(Mind you, it also took another three policewomen too check our passports and two security agents to check our bags – twice – and we were the only aircraft on the apron. So that makes – what? – 8 people on full pay with basically nothing to do. No wonder Greece, pretty though it is, is an economic mess.)

United Kingdom

The main goal of all populist govs since 1980 was (for some obscure reason) to destroy education,values,history and collective memory.And guess what…they succeded !
Now,since 2009 about 680.000 young,brilliant,innovative,hard working Greeks have moved for a better future in UK,Germany,Holland,Australia. What remains here ? You can guess it

Last Edited by MedFlyer at 08 Nov 10:37
LGGG

The further you go in southern Europe the more you see this.

The govt doesn’t have enough control to do anything about this.

But also this is how most of the earth’s surface runs. The “over employment” is used in place of what happens in N Europe: tossing “superfluous” people onto the social security system where they just rot and collect the benefits while avoiding as many employment options as they can. UK, anyone? I can’t objectively say N Europe has a “better” system. The system here works because we are “rich”, pay loads of tax, there is a lot of industry which creates a lot of wealth, we fill our houses with junk produced by everybody else, and tax evasion is really hard, so the govt has tons of money to spend on social security, to fund the “scrap heap”. In a poor country you can’t do that.

Also tossing surplus staff onto the scrap heap pushes much of the extended family (which they were previously supporting) onto social security where they are a further drain on the State while not paying any taxes (and the small % of enterprising ones doing businesses below the radar and also paying no tax).

At least the “superfluous” people in Greece are paying taxes, and have a better quality of life, sitting in the office and socialising over coffee and Gendecs That will translate directly to a reduced load of the health service, because health is very directly related to how you feel during your day.

Fraporting the airports would achieve nothing. You just get a load of income skimmed off back to Germany, “superfluous” locals tossed out onto the scrap heap to rot, and the remaining employed locals seize the opportunity to run little scams of their own (like €50 for booking the arrival slot) in the shadow of the big scam run by Fraport

Greece will never turn into N Europe. Hey, that’s why we go there for holidays! They just need to gradually reform as much as possible, but I think it is going to take an awfully long time because, after the massive injection of EU money and the subsequent (and inevitable – look at Spain) Big Bust, there is a lot of re-adjustment yet to go.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

MedFlyer wrote:

Now,since 2009 about 680.000 young,brilliant,innovative,hard working Greeks have moved for a better future in UK,Germany,Holland,Australia.

However that sounds bad, imagine Croatia (2.5 times less population than Greece) where 100.000 people left since beginning of 2017 (in less than 2 years) and some 300.000 in last 5 years. Imagine economy with 1.4 million employed people and 1.5 million retired people, 10% of unemployed.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Kastelorizo was our second home for many years.. but thats one big ol flight.
plenty of fishermen go back and forth to Kas, and customs are very " obliging" dont miss the blue grotto..

@fuzzflyer I have a rough cut of the Kastelorizo writeup here and there are some pics of the island there. Still have the videos to do…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Fantastic write-up (as always) Peter! Fascinatingly familiar too, since I flew quite a large part of your route (though to Sitia/Kythira and Ioannina) just a couple of weeks after you. Like you I managed to avoid any IFR slot payment at Sitia, although I nearly broke my wheels on their crazy tie-down hooks. Kythira (as you know) is simply stunning and Ioannina is a massive recommend, just a beautiful, untouristy and delightful city with its stunning location on the lake (and a particularly “interesting” instrument approach too!).

I gave up trying all those dud CAA email addresses and took the coward’s way out, contacting the handlers (Skyserv in every case) to do the legwork for me regarding PPR etc. Most of the time I found Greek ATC to be very helpful, though they were awfully keen on endless position reports on the two occasions when I flew VFR. They did however route me through a very complex military exercise between Sitia and Kythira when – quite unprofessionally, on my part – I explained that I had come 1700 nm all the way from the UK to see the beautiful Aegean islands from the air and might they possibly grant me a corridor between all the gunboats and the jets just this once? Which they duly and generously did, resulting in a fantastic low-level tour of some of these island gems.

Anyway, great report, great photos and thanks. I found this site to be a real boon in planning my trip. There’s nothing quite like it anywhere else on the web.

United Kingdom
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