Flew to Ancona Italy yesterday – after a quick VFR trip from LFHN to LFLP to pick up my passengers. (runway too short to leave full fuel and 4 PAX – luggage)
After an easy SID out of Annecy this is the pretty horrible routing I got…
so obviously you never fly these right. Wrong, no way to negotiate, what should have taken 2.30 hours ended up taking an hour longer. Anyway – weather was reasonable and the wife and her friends very happy with the trip. (shoe shopping trip – going to cost me a fortune…) Quick slice of pizza for me and the return flight an hour later on my own. Trying to get a routing that wasn’t 4.30hours was an absolute nightmare, so I decided to get smart.
Filed IFR LIPY LFMD (you will see they still put a horrible dogleg in here)
Then got even smarter and asked to be diverted to LFLP (which I had as my alternate :-) – had to cancel IFR overhead TOP (Torino VOR) as the radar minima are at FL180 which even I am unhappy to do without oxygen. Then flew direct LFHN via Chambery airspace and only had to go up to FL130. Very windy on the way back 55kts headwind for half of the trip at FL130…
Parking for an hour, handling, landing etc.. for 1 pilot and 3PAX was 90 euros.
Learnings :
1) Nice airspace is still an absolute mess unless you are above FL140.
2) Don’t even think of negotiating with Italian ATC – they are as flexible as a bar of concrete…
On point 2, I had a really good experience with Italian ATC flying from LFMD to EDNY for AeroExpo this year. I flew VFR all the way and they kindly let me fly through the Class As at FL090. Otherwise I would have had to descend and fly at 1,500 ft all the way in northern Italy. Negotiating on an IFR flight plan is probably a whole different ball game though.
It is a bit naive to think you might be able to ad-hoc negotiate a crossing of the Alps if your flightplanned route was so completely different. Torino ATC will not have had any flightplan from you.
Also, below FL180, there is simply no IFR route west-east across the western Alps near Turin. And where there is absolutely no airway, there is usually a reason for that and you can’t expect to be routed that way ad-hoc. There a very high mountains out there, national parks, military aispace…, the whole lot.
The solution would have been as on the way back, i.e. do the crossing of tha Alps under VFR.
Wow, what a long detour, was it due to the lack of ATC coordination along the route? Seems they like you coming over water rather than the Alps?
It seems you did beat the usual 141% hassle ratio (going along the square edges) by getting close to an extreme 157% hassle ratio (half circle length)
Nice airspace is still an absolute mess unless you are above FL140.
That is about it… It can get worse. On a recent flight I was at FL120 and asked for FL150 so I could get a shortcut but they refused, prob99 knowing that I would then ask for the shortcut 
They are quite militant. You need oxygen to use that airspace properly.
The Mt Blanc area needs FL180. I have tried to do it a few times (should be very scenic) over the years but never could because the air was too warm + I was too heavy. Once I managed only FL177 or so, so got a detour all around the west of the Alps. Once, with lighter passenger(s), I got to FL190 but it was all covered in cloud.
