Dear All,
I’m planning to fly to Son Bonet this Saturday. I landed there 4 years ago. I fact, I was trying to reach San Luis but because of a 1200ft ceilling, ATC don’t allowed me, I had to divert to Son Bonet and spend one night in Palma (good experience)
This time it is for a one week holiday with a last minute organisation.
I will fly from Montpellier Candillargues (a stop for petrol). Even if it doesn’t seems to be very complicated, I like to have advices because between AIP and usages there is sometime a huge difference. (best altitudes and frequencies…)
On spot, I will use SocialCar. It can be helpful to some of you, it is a spanish owers to owers renting car. It will be my first experience of that, but it seems to be an efficient way to find a car at your destination even if airfield is small.
Thank you by advance for your contribution !
PPG
Hi PPG,
this is from last year:
The route from POS to LESB is scenic, with hills to the north, but keeping at 1000ft agl can be uncomfortable if windy. As soon as we were freed by Palma we switched to Unicom 123.50 but got no other traffic until in the circuit. So on departure we went west, called Parma Approach 119.400, and tried to follow the terrain up to ADX. That was quite challenging, but the controller didn’t seem to mind too much that we were not sticking to 1000 ft agl precisely. At ADX we were cleared to FL100 to ESPOR, then to FL180; we got FL220 from Barcelona.
Son Bonets is hassle free. Prices seem to have gone up – I paid €54.85 for 48h. You park in front of the hangar in the picture and exit via the office with the mirrored windows you can see on the right of the pic.
There was no one from the Guardia Civil when we arrived, but they were there when we left; they only checked our IDs, and asked if I had a US license for my N-reg aircraft – unlike the French they didn’t bother to look at the supporting EASA license.
Fuelled on arrival, fuel truck was there in 5 minutes, paid with BP card so don’t know the price yet. The fuel truck is not available 2-5pm local. You can ask for a magnetic card to allow you back on the airfield, which is useful.
Denopa,
thank you ! another K point is the famous NIF in spain to buy petrol, I have a BP card, I think it will suit.
PPG
Hi PPG,
BP card should work without hassle..
I’m afraid that what you will save on ‘Social Car’ (never heard of them btw) you will spend on parking fees. Ever since AENA got partly privatised there is a tendency to screw GA. Look at paragraph 3.2.3.1. Special fees for Son Bonet for July and August. No justification for higher cost on the part of Son Bonet of course, nor because of the platform being full or so. Just screwing summer tourists like you.. Add VAT 23%. So sad..
Enjoy your stay though!
http://www.aena.es/csee/ccurl/87/716/Guia%20de%20tarifas%202017%20ed%20junio.pdf
Thank you
For SocialCar to be honest my target was to find a car on spot, not really to save money.
About the fees, I m quiet surprise but anyway it is always a no choice question… for GA, Spain is suffering of incredible fees, but until now it was only on big plateformes.
An other point is the complexity of the fees. You must multiplicate landing, weight, your shoes size and the age of the dog of the atc guy…
The pretext is to take money, take it fast and without suffering.
Thank you aart !
I have found, over the years, that when people ask me at a party or something about whether GA flying is complicated, one of the things which makes them laugh most is when I tell them that Majorca has two airports; one has customs and no avgas and the other has avgas and no customs 
Clearly it is a deliberate policy / political decision to keep it that way, to cripple GA activity there.
Peter wrote:
Clearly it is a deliberate policy / political decision to keep it that way, to cripple GA activity there.
I am losing track of all the sophisticated conspiracy theories… maybe collect them in a separate section on the page?
Between the two possible explanations, conspiracy against GA on the one hand, incompetence and lack of incentive to do things right on the other, I’d think the second is quite more likely.
…and this is why,so many times,our GA discussions run out of the cage and you have to move them to the Depository. 
For shure light GA is becoming more like a political activity than a pleasing hobby,particularly bellow the Alps.
Blocking competition is a big activity in business management. No conspiracy – just “normal business”…
Some very visible and obvious examples off the top of my head, up the road from here:
It’s usually obvious who the losers would be if something was improved – especially in the unbelievably stale business of running airports which seems to be the last bastion of Arthur Scargill types.
The word “conspiracy” is mostly used in the wrong context. In the context of business activity, it has a meaning only as a criminal activity. All the rest of the time, it is just what you do in “everyday business”. Unethical, sure…. that is normal in business and politics, everywhere.
