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Eurocontrol CTOT / airport slot assignments for light GA and how to get around them

The Greek airport slots are for IFR approaches only to coordinated level 3 airports. File a VFR approach (flight rule change before IAF) and you don’t need the slot.

We’ve done this 5 times now, haven’t we?

Well, not quite; my communications with them indicate a certain level of bloody mindedness manual operator involvement which may indicate they will enforce them for any flight, including VFR.

Then we have examples like the annual EDNY charade.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The guidelines for Greek airport slots clearly state that they are not required for VFR approaches.

If you ask a handler “do I need x” and there is a price tag on x, the answer will be yes. They are a low life form after all…

Caba, you can handle VFR tactically, just shove it aside until there is a gap. This can be done without the whole flow control infrastructure that makes sure that sectors don’t feed too much traffic into adjacent sectors.

Now if Europe only had US style contact approaches…

What exactly does “contact approach” mean? Isn’t that the same as a “visual approach” under IFR?

Last Edited by at 03 Sep 07:14

A contact approach does not require the same nice weather as a visual approach and it can be initiated prior to having the airfield in sight. A bit too cowboy-like for European regulators.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100521060414/http://www.aopa.org/pilot/features/ii_9808.html

The US don’t have the sophisticated planning ahead infrastructure that we have with IFPS but they have more tactical tools available to resolve conflicts and much laxer separation requirements.

Last Edited by achimha at 03 Sep 07:19

A couple of other relevant threads: here and here for the Greek angle.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

eddsPeter wrote:

Is there any possibilty to request a slot for the ifr flight directley out of autorouter or any other flightplaning-/routingtool?

Technically this is possible. I am not aware of any GA tool having automated support but it’s on the to do list for autorouter. The automated interfaces are country specific and usually not very good but there are pan-European efforts to consolidate the slot issuing platforms into a single tool: https://e-airportslots.aero

Of course there are also the money making schemes like in Greece where only certain people are allowed to request the slots for you. I wonder what the arrangements exactly are and what else there is on top of the official arrangement…

Alexis wrote:


What exactly does “contact approach” mean? Isn’t that the same as a “visual approach” under IFR?

1nm vis., clear of clouds daytime only. Even in the US I was denied Contact approach cause the controller was not familiar with it. No argument just did a Visual as the Wx cleared up unexpectedly. Was familiar with the airport and the surrounding terrain so was comfortable with it and also there was no traffic.

KHTO, LHTL

Peter wrote:

In general, the Eurocontrol routings keep GA a very long way away from CAT traffic in the terminal areas – both vertically and laterally.

An extreme case is Paris, where overflight is not possible below FL200 and the huge dogleg (BILGO etc) ensures that I have never even seen any of the traffic.

I do not know where you get that CAT/GA separation thing from. The FL200 requirement is for all traffic. Not only GA. Likewise the routing. There are just no LO airways through the Paris area and the DCT limit is 0. It is just the way they have chosen to organise the traffic around Paris. It is a drag, but it is what it is.

In, my case it means that I sometimes need to circumvent Paris to the North and East, especially on arrival. There is plenty of CAT/GA traffic sharing the airspace below FL200. Arrivals and departures to/from the Paris airports.

I had a close encounter with an AF flight departing from LFPG a few months ago where we both were turned away from eachother by the controller “immediately”. When being on the arrival to LFPT (or rather vectored) from the East or South-East (on the TRO7T arrival for example), I frequently get visual with airliners being vectored to LFPG, and/or see them on the traffic system. Most of my departures from LFPT to the South (MONOT, PTV) take me overhead LFPO at 5000’ with airliners a couple thousand feet below.

LFPT, LFPN
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