Until 2016 entities with turnover of less than 1M EUR were allowed to sell fuel without concession. This included aero clubs, etc. In 2016 the exemption was removed. It is not legal to sell fuel without concession. A friend can’t sell 50L of fuel to a friend. Speaking fluent Polish or not doesn’t have much influence. Only larger companies like Orlen, Lotos, Warter can sell fuel.
I’m about 80% sure my friends on VSD-4 got 40L of avgas from some pilot in EPBK.. at 1.2EUR/liter..
Either way, we were right at MTOW already. Plus, before departing, I was actually optimistic that we would be able to persuade the club at EPBK to give us some fuel. But there was no chance. I wonder if It would have been different if I were fluent in Polish. My feeling is no.
boscomantico wrote:
A pity, since we only needed 50 litres to make it back to Germany.
Forgive my ignorance wrt EASA regs in this case, but for only 50L could you not have taken a couple of Jerrycans? In the US it’s legal only in Alaska under certain circumstances.
First of all, even for a short fuel stop, they rob you of 35€ for a landing/handling fee.
That’s still super-cheap comparing to Greece or Italy.
Back from Poland. Fuel-wise, everything went as expected. Bialystok (EPBK) did absolutely not give us any Avgas, which they had plenty of, for the known reasons. Not even unofficially, without any receipts or similar. A pity, since we only needed 50 litres to make it back to Germany. We briefly considered Gizycko EPGM, but as it was more directly on our route, in the end, we chose Olszytn-Mazury EPSY. Well, it works, but isn‘t brilliant. First of all, even for a short fuel stop, they rob you of 35€ for a landing/handling fee. The fuel is also rather expensive, at about 2.6 Euros a litre. Moreover, this time, the fuel guy was very slow with his paperwork and payment. Took longer than necessary.
I will certainly give an update once the flight has been completed.
For now, I have read the dla.pilota table (with the help of a Polish colleague). Is is certainly a bit misleading, and the devil is in the detail. In the foreword to the table, they say they have omitted (in the table) small club airfields which have licensing issues for the sale of fuels. One would therefore think that those listed are only ones where the sale of fuel is generally possible. But this not the case. The list also includes fields like Bialystok and Olsztyn-Dajtki, and even the notes column does not say that they can’t sell fuels to third parties. Which, however, is the case.
So, while the list gives some guidance of where Avgas might be available, one would still have to check one by one personally, language issues notwithstanding.
I would still say, generally: at the small uncontrolled fields, don’t expect Avgas to be available for sale. It might be, but likely will not be.
Also, an interesting note is that according to the table and its footnotes, Ketryzyn (EPKE) has, for now, stopped the sale of Avgas!
Thanks. Well, I mentioned EPSY in the first post. I have used it previously. It IS a safe option, though I would prefer an uncontrolled field.
EPKE of course is also possible, although I wasn‘t fond of the taxiways.
EPOD would really be my favourite, but they just don‘t sell any fuel to visitors.
Have you checked Olsztyn-Mazury EPSY? They are still listed as having Avgas & Jet-A1.
I stopped there just for fuel on the way to the Olsztyn grass strip (EPOD), back in 2017. At the time it was a huge new airport funded by EU development money, so I was told, and waiting for the tourists to arrive. No traffic. Refueling is via fuel truck (and GA parking if I recall correctly) on the west side of the airport on the opposite side of the runway from the terminal and infrastructure. I didn’t test the process for transfer from parking/fueling to the terminal building and back. There was no need for just a tech stop because refueling and airport fees were both handled on the GA side.
One fellow collected the airport fees while the fuel truck man refueled my aircraft. I paid the refueling with my Air BP card which was very fast due to no other paperwork, just a signature on the receipt…. and I was off again. The whole process took less than 20’ from touch-down to lift-off.
Another option back in 2017 was Ketrzyn EPKE. I don’t know the situation today, and the linked table shows it as only having Jet-A. You might want to give them a call to check. It is a grass strip and was in good shape then. Thunderstorms with hail were forecast, so the Ops fellow opened up his massive, nearly empty hangar and we shoved some 10 planes into it. We camped overnight and the Ops fellow slept in his office to ensure that our planes were kept safe 
They rolled out a wonderful breakfast for our large group.
