There is an important detail here.
The GAR contains confidential personal data, and nobody is allowed to see it unless they are registered under the Data Protection Act for that purpose.
It has often been the case that UK airports have asked for the GAR. In many cases these are small airfields with just one man doing the radio. It is PROB99 that all of these are doing so illegally, without realising it.
The GAR should go to the government agencies and nobody else.
If an airport requires 4hrs PNR for whatever purpose, that's fine. If you are happy to copy them on the GAR, that's up to you. But if they fail to pass on the GAR to the relevant agencies, it is you who will get done for it.
I've said this before but as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter one bit if you stick in a GAR but don't actually fly, or fly quite a bit later that day. They seem to look at the actual flight plan and flight data and if they don't see one for your GAR, they bin the GAR. Loads of GA flights get cancelled (weather, plane not available, cost sharing passengers not turning up, etc) and few people bother to cancel the GAR, for which there is no published process in any case.
There is yet another puzzling aspect: why are there so many airports that are designated customs-wise but not immigration-wise? I mean...in UK, both customs and immigration are nowadays dealt with by the same entity: Border Force. Any ideas?
Not done a lot of this GAR thing, but on one occasion, when the timing/destination or whatever went wrong (can't recall), I phoned a number (I'd carefully noted) and it was all amicable sorted.
Seems communication is the key when things go 'off plan'.
Always look for the simplest explanation, which is usually this.
I believe you can get that in a set of DVDs. But really it is time to produce a properly updated European version.
The answer is Turf Wars!
In reality, as I have been repeatedly told by the police who occasionally "talk to" people at Shoreham, is that the same 3 blokes do all the jobs at the same time.
But really it is time to produce a properly updated European version.
There was a recent remake of Yes Prime Minster, and while I was very dubious as to whether it would live up to the original, I have to say it wasn't bad. David Haig was very good, the other cast just about OK, but no one could beat Sir Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey. As far as I recall, there was some references to Europe, but curiously the same things about Europe that were being ridiculed in the original series, still applied to the new series.
What they did need though was the PM stuck in Le Touquet with Sir Humphrey struggling to get a 3G connection on his iPad to file a online GAR form so he could urgently fly the PM back to the UK in the Queen's loaned Royal Cessna 182 for an arms deal meeting with Robert Mugabe or something. I could imagine Sir Humphrey trying all sorts of bribery or otherwise dubious tactics to worm his way through the bureaucracy in under 4 hours :-)
My reading of the rules is that GAR forms cannot be used (for inbound flights) if any onboard require "leave to enter" the UK...that would mean any non-EU citizen without an existing suitable visa such as "indefinite leave to remain" (like me)....ie if you are an American or Australian say coming in to the UK from France say, you could not use a GAR and would need to go to a full customs/immigration airport....
I am open to being corrected!
It isn't true. I brought my daughter's American friends back from Calais to Oxford after our flyin and they were purely visitors.
The biggest challenge, and something to be aware of, is if you have children who aren't your own with you Immigration are far more attentive and careful. Fair enough too.
If they require leave to enter however:
Additionally if anybody onboard requires Leave to Enter the UK the agent or owner of the aircraft could also be charged £2000 for each inadequately documented person carried on the aircraft.
So who requires "leave to enter the UK" then?
According to Wikipedia:
a person who is not a British citizen, a Commonwealth citizen with the right of abode in the UK, or a person who is entitled to enter or remain in the United Kingdom by virtue of the provisions of the 2006 EEA Regulations requires leave to enter the United Kingdom.
ie you need to have right of abode, be British, have permanent leave to remain or be an EU citizen.
It's true they check the GARs for anybody whose date of birth suggests they are under 16 (or 18?) and if there isn't somebody else listed of the same surname whose age might plausibly make them a parent of that person, they phone you up and ask for the phone number of the kid's mum.
It is so obviously open to abuse. For a start nobody kidnapping a kid is going to stick them on the GAR form! And they have no way of checking the person on the phone is really a parent of that kid.
I can't quote a reg on the right of abode but from a distant dim recollection I have flown with somebody (on a GAR) who had a UK visa but no more than that, and it was not questioned.
Which doesn't mean it was right of course.... all I see suggests they take one look at the GAR and if it looks like one of the "usual" pilots they file it, otherwise they look more carefully. Except the Special Branch ones (Ireland etc) which are processed 100.000% rigorously every time right down to checking the PNR timing to the nearest minute (maximum job creation).
