I looked at the other debate (I got banned from there ~2 years ago because it is loaded with CAA/NATS staff under nicknames, and I kept posting about the CAA no-prisoners infringements policy which they wanted to keep suppressed, as happened here too 
) and as usual it is mostly either off topic or gramatically nonsensical.
AFAICT the OP’s main issue is not realising that no UK GAR service is going to be sending stuff to another airport to meet its PN/PPR requirements. It would be impossible to specify let alone build such a system, as well as raise the money to maintain the contact database.
Whether OnlineGAR is still running, I have no idea but I am sure Carl Meek will be along sometime. I still use email for my GARs; it works just fine.
GRIFF wrote:
This one has already been done to death on Flyer Forum, he must have his answers from that or is the OP trying to have dig at Carl ?
not quite “done to death” nor a pop at Carl, simply no straight answer. Thought a more mature, measure response would come from Euroga. For the life of me, cannot fathom why the online gar sends an email to immigration in time marked as local time. Its a bug in the system. Simples. is it too much effort to look in the AIP? no ! Would one expect online gar to be accurate if previous use had been seamless? yes as no reason to suspect otherwise. Could i send them an email if i’d realised the fault? Yes! of course but (a) i didn’t realise that was a bug and (b) as you correctly point out – and no one has answered on Flyer – that would have resulted in them then receiving 2 emails – one with the (incorrect) local time, the other with the (correct) local time – and the French would love that.
As i said on Flyer and for your benefit @GRIFF – if you have anything useful to add, then please do so, otherwise, clearly Carl is your mate, perhaps you could give him a nudge. Thanks for your assistance on here too.
Anyway, even if it did send the correct time, it would still be useless. A GAR is often sent a few hours before a flight, while French customs require at least 24h at most airports nowadays. It doesn‘t make sense.
Good to know for the future (don‘t use OnlineGAR or Skydemon for flights between the UK and France) but again, the better solution would be if these emails weren‘t sent to begin with.
Peter wrote:
Whether OnlineGAR is still running, I have no idea
OnlineGAR is still running, I always use it directly.
I have spoken to the guy who set up OnlineGAR and the site is soon going to be taken down. It’s apparently no longer worth running.
Interesting. After all those years… the end of an era.
It means people like SD will have to negotiate with the UK Govt for an API for a “secure” GAR insertion, IF they want that level of assurance / due diligence. They could script the govt website of course but that’s tacky.
Or they can do what the Autorouter does: it just emails the GARs to the NCU email address I have not seen any good or bad feedback on that aspect of it. I have never used the AR for GAR filing because I want GAR data to be private The AR also sends the Eurocontrol tracking URL to NCU so they can see what the flight is doing.
Peter wrote:
SD will have to negotiate with the UK Govt for an API
Or maybe SD could take over OnlineGAR :)
I suspect there is no money in it, especially by the time you have set up stuff like dual failover hosting and decent security. You are after all handling data which would enable an attacker to empty your bank account, not to mention get a full list of people you are probably having an affair with (and empty your bank account that way) 
Hosting is cheap nowadays but “IT” costs money. Even a simple database and some UI front end will cost >10k to get set up. Then you have to pay somebody to keep an eye on it. Certificates expire… IT costs money all the way down the line.
And most potential customers are using email or the govt GAR website, for free.
And most pilots never fly abroad, or they go several-up and one of them deals with the GARs for everyone
La Rochelle still has 48HRS Douane PN Notam for flights to/from the UK, so I’m a little confused as to how using SD for a flight plan/GAR with what, 2hrs PN caused issues by sending an email to the douanes, unless of course the real problem was you didn’t give the douanes 48hrs PN and they only recieved the flight plan/GAR…
Whether OnlineGAR is still running, I have no idea
It’s still working but it has never been fully functional – it doesn’t keep the record of crew, passengers, aircraft data and sometimes loses the history of previous flights.
