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Temporary Schengen "suspension" around Europe

I was answering the question which defence one would have if arriving at a non-PPF airfield (coming from say Germany) and customs/police turns up, questioning why no PN was given. The answer to that is Article 9.

It does not supply any defence in the Dijon (PPF airfield). case.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

boscomantico wrote:

I was answering the question which defence one would have if arriving at a non-PPF airfield (coming from say Germany) and customs/police turns up, questioning why no PN was given. The answer to that is Article 9.

It does not supply any defence in the Dijon (PPF airfield). case.

Ah, sorry, I misread that.

I still don’t think the regulations/law we have seen allows Customs to do that for Dijon, though. Nothing in article says what happens if there are temporary controls, to nothing changes if temporary controls are introduced unless there is some other law or regulation we have not seen yet.

Biggin Hill

Thanks bosco, article 9 was exactly the law I was searching for!

Nonetheless, the idea that you can legally enter France without any hassle at a non-PPF airfield (which is thankfully still possible), but cannot enter France via a bigger PPF-airfield without PNR/PPR to customs, is completely ridiculous. Not to speak about the outrageous fines, which can destroy a complete vacation budget. Again, customs officers are one of the worst kind of ‘officials’ we need to deal with.

Last Edited by Frans at 29 Nov 19:26
Switzerland

Peter wrote:

how many people still think that a FP has any meaning for PNR/PPR whatsoever?

While I know it is not, and “a FP is only for ATC”, I wonder why filing a “full, before the flight, written FP” (as opposed to an abbreviated FP in the air over the radio) on an international flight is mandatory for international flights, but not for intra-country (or intra-Germany/Belgium/Czech Republic/… zone) if it has nothing to do with customs or immigration? This “smells” like FPs are used in some way by at least one of Border Force, Customs, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Army, Secret Services or State actors in connection with detecting or prosecuting international flights. “Obviously” they cannot rely solely on FPs, but still, else, why would it be proportionate to introduce this restriction to freedoms in a free society based on rule of law, etc?

In connection with that, I asked the Dutch ANSP (under GDPR rules) who gets flight plans, keeps them for how long and does what with them. The list included a wide cut of state services, and they said they failed to ascertain what these “others” do with FPs. I don’t remember the complete list, but it included the Koninkelijke Marechaussee (the Dutch police force with military status, like the French Gendarmerie, the Italian Carabinieri, etc). They also said that in their analysis FPs are not, and do not contain, personal information, a conclusion with which I disagree, but that’s another issue.

ELLX

Frans wrote:

Nonetheless, the idea that you can legally enter France without any hassle at a non-PPF airfield (which is thankfully still possible), but cannot enter France via a bigger PPF-airfield without PNR/PPR to customs, is completely ridiculous.

Yes.

It is not formal proof, but each time that French customs blamed me for not filing a PNR/PPR at a port of entry for an intra-Schengen intra-EU flight, after having answered that nothing in the AIP or NOTAMs says I have to, I also say “OK, next time I’ll go to (insert name of small airfield next to port of entry), there is no PNR/PPR requirement there”, they never challenged me on that plan.

ELLX

As a matter of interest other than the name of the PIC what other personal information does an FPL contain?
Oh perhaps number of persons on board.
The rest just surely facilitates the use of airspace and when, where you are coming from and going to and the time you are doing it.
And its also useful to trigger search and rescue in the event of a problem. I’m not sure I’d call that personal.

Last Edited by gallois at 30 Nov 09:08
France

gallois wrote:

As a matter of interest other than the name of the PIC what other personal information does an FPL contain?

Location information, that is the information when that PIC, and (for many aircraft) with high probability the owner of the plane, was where. Your shoes do not contain personal information per se, but tracking the location of your shoes is an intimately personal information about you. Same with your coat, your car, your plane, your boat, your pocket computer (AKA phone) and many other objects.

Last Edited by lionel at 30 Nov 09:10
ELLX

Here in the UK, FPs do go freely to the police (any part of), ATC obviously, a database of AFTN messages run by NATS (this is where S&R actions get it from) and they end up in some sort of “national security” database for ever. Also radar recordings are kept basically for ever, by a dept run by the GCHQ (this was posted on a UK site years ago and promptly a GCHQ guy signed up and posted a warning ).

FPs do contain personal info in the sense that you can get a good view of someone’s travelling patterns. The GAR/GENDEC forms are of course even better; you can generally work out who is having an affair

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

lionel wrote:

This “smells” like FPs are used in some way by at least one of Border Force, Customs, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Army, Secret Services or State actors in connection with detecting or prosecuting international flights. “Obviously” they cannot rely solely on FPs, but still, else, why would it be proportionate to introduce this restriction to freedoms in a free society based on rule of law, etc?

In UK, FPL do get distributed to UKBF: they called by phone while we were eating a lunch in France to let me know that I did not file a GAR but had FPL (the one day where I used the funky govt.uk website), it was toward an uncontrolled airfield, so it’s not some ops who is re-distributing them, funnily, no one was around when I landed

Surely in France as well: one friend got welcomed at Plessis Beville right after buying and ferry of his new Cirrus from Germany…

Frans wrote:

Nonetheless, the idea that you can legally enter France without any hassle at a non-PPF airfield (which is thankfully still possible), but cannot enter France via a bigger PPF-airfield without PNR/PPR to customs, is completely ridiculous

Just a partial answer: if you go to PPF without permanent customs: do PNR/PPR to the letter (if they are not present, they will get called by operations or sent by the boss “malgré eux” while you are waiting on a Sunday afternoon, no one is happy ), if you go to non-PPF, they may get forwarded the FPL but unlikely they will ever care, it’s not their homebase (no one calls them anyway and everybody is happy )

Last Edited by Ibra at 30 Nov 09:49
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

FPs do contain personal info in the sense that you can get a good view of someone’s travelling patterns.

Flight plans used to be public information in Sweden as the national ANSP was a government agency and all documents sent to or from government agencies in Sweden are public unless classified according to law. At some point (decades ago), flight plans were classfied for exactly that reason.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
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