My guess is that Corfu has massive GA-CAT airside separation and you can’t walk – you get a lift in a car.
But also people everywhere get very officious when they have nothing else to do. At home, UK, the rubbish collectors look at the recycling bin and if I leave a large wad of business invoices in there, they pull them out, saying it’s “commercial waste”. So I have to put them in just a few kg at a time. Greece loves its paperwork. It’s pointless, and at best can be seen as a redistribution of wealth to the islands which are mostly poor except for public servants and a few others.
There we are. Well, airside in Corfu or not. If they force you to fly to an Airport of Entry, they should at least ask you, who you are ;-)
But it’s not that i am suffering so much – i just tend to be an observer. I am just as critical about my own or other countries.
I talked with the tower guy at Milos a bit two days ago. After ten minutes it was clear that they, or at least this guy, are not really interested in visiting pilots from abroad. They don’t make any money on me (no landing fee, no parking fee) and those german wisecrackers only question their military like rules. I can almost understand them!
When i first inquired about flying Milos they would not confirm the parking there, “because it is the high season”. It was confirmed 24 h before i arrived and they said it might still change last minute. But when i arrived and asked for some weights they said " we don’t need that because we rarely have small aircraft visiting ;-))
When i am here longer i get used to it, but the first days are a bit hard sometimes.
All good now. I enjoy Heraklion!
Flyer 59 “I for one don’t like their pointless bureaucracy, … and ask somebody who’s living here, like my friend who has a hotel on Milos …what bureaucracy does to them all the time. Compared to that Germany is Jamaica ;-)”
Careful you dont want to be labeled a complainer.
I think there is a lot of tension in the air right now. The guy is worried that the EU might insist on more public sector job cuts. Fact that your German and since Angela in nowhere around you’ll do for any grief he can give.
Usually when the political winds dont favor Americans I pull out my Chateau Frontenac shirts with Canada in large print and I become Canadian Eh.
Peter "You are now in a beautiful country, with friendly laid back people, great weather, a German towel on every deckchair, airports which positively encourage flying of visual approaches (because the only plane they have for navaid calibration has been impounded in N Europe for unpaid bills), so what is there to not like?
Putting it another way, imagine you were a Greek and Ms Merkel just wrote you a cheque for € 30 BN. Imagine the mental torture you would be going through deciding whether to buy a TBM900 (and whether to buy the €6000 DVD player option) or a PC12 (and whether to buy the €12000 gold edged toilet seat). Of course EuroGA will always be there to assist with the purchase decision, H24.
Seriously though Greece is a country where the same thing rarely happens twice. If you want things to happen twice the same way, you take holidays in Germany or Switzerland. I have just been to the Wind phone shop to see if I can get a €17 refund for the 5GB SIM card con they sold me a few days ago (it actually costs €37) and they again showed me the door, as before. Actually that’s a bad example because the same thing did actually happen twice."
And I was told the Brits have no sense of humor. 
I feel with your slight frustration, Alexis. I mean, we have lots of choices on where to go and spend one’s €€€ and one really doesn’t want to deliberately go to a place which seems to be indifferent about the business and who drown you with their homemade burocracy and “can’t-do attitude”.
On the other hand, Italy is just as bad in terms of burocracy. Spain is the same. It seems all the southern European places suffer from the same type of disease these days, so where do you go if you want the mediterranean style? Croatia is better in terms of burocracy but they are getting there.
I feel the only way is to try to arrange yourself as much as possible with the given circumstances and, as Peter said, focus on the positive aspects.
I think there is a lot of tension in the air right now. The guy is worried that the EU might insist on more public sector job cuts. Fact that your German and since Angela in nowhere around you’ll do for any grief he can give.
Correct C210 Flyer, there is and most probably he was one of them. As boscomantico said one should focus on the positive aspects !
which positively encourage flying of visual approaches (because the only plane they have for navaid calibration has been impounded in N Europe for unpaid bills)
It is indeed true … http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/06/03/no-night-flights-to-aegean-island-airports/
If i wouldn’t focus on the positive sides, i wouldn’t fly here!
I do, but i thought/think that these things are helpful and interesting for other pilots. Or do we want s forum without these experiences?
Italian airports treated me much worse in the past: € 500 fuel but no receipt possible was only one thing i remember (Brindisi)
Most people on all three airports were very nice and created absolutely no problems. The prices are very low IMHO, except fuel.
Hello everybody complaining about Greece ! By the time you understand that a massive percent of Greeks behave suicidialy or simply dont care for the little qualities gained in West Europe during the Enlightment then you will be able to understand why this gov attracts the masses and behaves so “provocatively” to the West. You might consider why communists continued a pointless civil war here in 1945-1949,allthough they were abandoned by Stalin after the Yalta Convention. The soul of the average Greek remains communist,even if he doesnt realize it.Keeping this in mind then you can translate why such behavior in Milos,why “Full Aprons” in Santorini,why 3 day PPR in Kos,why no Avgas in Thesaloniki,why pointless General Health Declaration+Statistics everywhere,why unfriendly NOTAMS,why closed airports,why “dont bother me AFISOs”,why useles-stupid timetables etc. You are absolutely right.If you cant take it,dont take it.The public sector (who gets payed from our Taxes or lended money from EU) doesnt care at all.Not for you,not for the local prosperity or the money that Flyer59 would leave on the island. This has been a long time esoteric debate between the micro-mass of Greek GA pilots and the over-fed Public sector.I too have flown to ex-communist countries and have felt much better than at home.Makes me feel blue.
But I have felt similarly in various Italian and Spanish and Israeli airports.Dont mention the issue of “English Proficiency” there or in France.We have discussed this before.
In general,the more south you go the more apathy,hostility,inefficiency and suspicion you tend to receive.If you fly even more south or east you can easily be arrested just for fun.
Act accordingly./
As always I have enjoyed my stay in Heraklion. Especially the beach at the airport is fun: Big waves for the kids and an airplane for daddy every five minutes.
This morning I got up at 4 and we (Philipp, the student pilot I took on the trip, and me) were at the airport for a 6 am (LT) departure, 03:00 UTC. The weather forecast for the Alps made me decide this, I had no wish to circumnavigate 50 CBs and go as far east as Vienna. We had a great take-off just as the sun rose out of the sea and climbed uneventfully to FL120.
After one hour when we reached the Greek mainland we entered IMC at FL120 and had a little ice and turbulence. I asked for higher levels and climbed to 140 and later to 160. From FL130 we used oxygen through cannulas. Then we were in FL160 and again in IMC and again we had some ice. I switched on the TKS, which worked very nicely. We flew in IMC almost to te Albanian border. West of Tirana, when we reached the sea again, most of the clouds were gone and we soon started our descent to Dubrovnik. We were vectored nicely to the RWY12 ILS which offers a nice view of the old town and were on the ground after 3 hours and 51 minutes.
When we stopped there was already a crew van there and the fuel truck arrived 2 minutes later. The girl with the van took me to the office where I paid the landing fee (€ 35 for the technical landing) and when I came back to the plane 12 (!) minutes later we were ready to go. A super efficient and very modern airport. 20 minutes after landing we took off. Try that one in …
Approaching the Alps we downloaded the latest METARS, TAFs and radar images via satellite and our strategy proved right. We could see the build ups starting in the west but we flew in the clear almost to my home field EDML. I cancelled IFR 15 miles out and soon we were on the ground.
The strategy to fly as early as possible proved right one more time. I have no idea if we would have made it home in the late afternoon, the forceast was for heavy thunderstorms from 16.00 LT ..,
My wife and kids slept until 9 in Heraklion and flew to Munich via Athens with AEAGEAN in an A320. I had time to wash the plane, have a cup of coffee and drive over to MUC where i had to wait another 30 minutes for them. And their luggage was lost in Athens (i have mine ;-)) I flew almost exactly 7 hours from Crete to Munich. I have to download the data from the plane, but I think the average ground speed was 155 knots.
