Greatly relieved I was ‘April Fooled’!
But with modern bureaucracy and creeping State Control of all our freedoms, one can never be too surprised by new ‘innovations’!
I would like to reiterate on this:
It is absolute BS. Almost every word of it.
It will be interesting to read of real world diversions now that this is official „guidance“.
Well, I for one don’t plan on using 2 or 3.
1 is fine if you change your plans before departure and I’m happy to do that.
Other than that, any diversion I make will be to the nearest APPROPRIATE airfield (not nearest available) and I would of course contact the police / Border Force at that point and deal with it then. I’m certainly not diverting into Stansted because it’s the nearest nor am I going out of my way in bad weather to find a customs approved field (and trying to look up a list of which is which when flying an airplane in weather that I’ve already decided is too bad to continue).
Yes it is BS in reality. I have diverted a few times and you just phone them up. In fact last time they phoned the place I landed about 15 mins after I got out of the plane, and asked to speak to me on the phone, and all was fine.
But you will see BS printed, and this is normal because jobs self-select on personality, hence certain types of people end up writing this stuff.
I have diverted a few times and you just phone them up.
Sure, but that was before the guidance changed. We will have to see if doing so in the future causes any issues. I can‘t really believe so, also because of that last paragraph. Anyway, I guess nobody will submit a new GAR at that point. And, playing devil‘s advocate here, if going to some non-designated airport, one might have to justify why one hasn‘t been able at all to divert to any properly designated airport.
This is all a grand shame. Yet the southern coast is a leaky sieve for any criminal, and they get the preferential treatment on arrival to the UK.
Be very careful with the government GAR form website.
You can apparently submit one without actually submitting it. It will be listed in your list of GAR forms without any indication.
It is a shit website, very confusing in the way you have to proceed to the next step without obvious new data. I am sure it complies with the guidelines for gender and race inclusivity and for blind people. And meets the requirements for max 2 braincells needed, by splitting up the filing process.
Had a long phone call from Biggin Hill police. Maximum fine is GBP 10000. They check every FP for a corresponding GAR form.
You should get a separate email for each form filed.
Also print them out.
Peter wrote:
You can apparently submit one without actually submitting it. It will be listed in your list of GAR forms without any indication.
Interesting – what exactly happened? Drafts of unsubmitted forms can be saved, but submitted ones have a unique reference and email.