UK GAR form discussion, and UK border police procedures

It is if you come from outside the UK.

carlmeek wrote:

My history All started with John murray, a private AOPA member. The XML format was developed mutually and developed about 4 years ago. He was running a server and paying for it himself, it became unsustainable and he got very upset by people criticising the apps he wrote. There was no money in it for him; it became unsustainable. I stepped in and tried to put a funding in place that would keep it going, and you could say it’s successful: 3 years on, it’s still running, and it does pay its way. Just.

What ever became of people doing things for nothing?

I support products like the one we are discussing because they are clearly marketed as a commercial product and I am happy to pay.

The AOPA product was dressed up as a service AOPA were providing to the UK community which was admirable and exactly what they should be doing with the organisation providing the proper funding to make it work (or the member doing it out of goodwill). Of course neither was the case and it shouldnt have been necessary for anyone to step in, but thank you for doing so. It is just another example of AOPA being inept at these sort of initiatives.

Like everyone else I don’t think that we can thank Carl enough for what he has done.

God forbid that I will ever have to dust off that old FAX machine that’s sitting in the corner of the office!

I’m bemused.

I fly to-from the UK about 6 times a month, and since 2003. I simply email the relevant authorities (the contents of the GAR don’t change very much so a quick date and time update and I’m good to go).

They don’t usually respond, but do query if there’s something they’re unsure of.

A great service, highly professional and completely free of charge…

Cheers, Sam.

Sam,

That point really demonstrates how ridiculous the current system is. Your email generates a huge workload at the government end, where they have to manually key it into the systems. By using a proper online system, it saves them a huge volume of work. Yet…. the old method remains free.

-C

I’ve just done a marathon multi hour admin session, merging about 20 GAR related threads into one and doing some other edits elsewhere. It’s amazing how much has been posted over the years on this topic

Then I remembered that late last year I came back from somewhere abroad, having forgotten to send off the GAR, and predictably got met by two police officers at Shoreham. They were polite (unlike an “interview” several years before when I did the same returning from Jersey, when I got about 3hrs) and gave me a xeroxed leaflet on some “new” GAR system.

I am not sure if it says anything new; it has no date on it, but here it is

Does anyone know if this is anything of relevance?

I used to use the AOPA GAR filing gateway some years ago, then I used OnlineGAR, but nowadays I just email them. Like OnlineGAR, the email supports all 3 UK services (immigration, customs, and “terrorist police” for Ireland etc) and I have hundreds of old GARs which I just edit and re-email.

The above says the email option will be discontinued. Has anyone heard anything about this?

Hi Peter – tx for great work on EuroGA – maybe see you in Friedrichshafen ? – I’ll be there Friday and Sat – email me

Anyway I’ve been off scene for quite a bit – last couple of years struggling with other major issues and a number of personal health related ones

I don’t have quite the contacts I used to on BF issues but I can say this leaflet is some 3-4 years old

A little (accurate !) history is called for
(I note from previous comments that my contribution to the GAR development has now been reduced to a petty ‘upset at criticism of his apps’ and the understandable put downs of that. harumph!!)

the work on an electronic GAR started in 2010 – I developed the much slagged off Silverlight GAR entry simply as an end to end demo of getting an xml into BF system. that in itself took a couple of years.
The absence of any funds and the surplus of people happy to say ‘what you wanna do is… ’ yet no offers of real help, meant that the ’proof of concept’ became the de facto online GAR.

Into the bargain I found myself funding it all (no not even a penny from AoPA) – it was just not on. Carl had resources and far slicker skills than me, so he took it on with my full assistance, thank goodness.

What many people don’t realise is that the urgency back in 2012-2013 to get something up and running was that there was a noticeable lobby to restrict private aviation (X Border) to a limited number of airfields – no doubt with huge handling fees. The thrust of the work on electronic GAR was to demo that a prebooking system to all airfields could work. That and the absence of any resource meant it was the Silverlight app warts and all.
As such it served its purpose

Home Office back in 2013 mandated that the client end must be user funded (because the airline Advanced Pax Info system was). When Carl took over with OnlineGAR, they (HO) reluctantly accepted that whilst they continued to receive emails and faxes (which all have to be re-entered) then the take up of direct online was going to be low. By that time (2 years on) they realised the system was useful to them ( a small victory)

Also in early 2015 there was a new immigration law which extended ministerial powers to make orders. This was to replace the ‘Commissioners Directives’ on which the GAR is based and which are full of holes – A wholesale revision of regs including notice periods was planned.
I believe the withdrawal of the non online means of submitting GAR (inc emails) was planned to coincide with this roll out.
At that time although we weren’t happy about some notice periods we were moving in the right direction and the existence of an online system had proved the workability of notification – job done one would have thought.

since then Brexit and general election –
major events like that give the civil servants long grass kicking practice

Where we stand now is that rumours are surfacing again of entry through limited ‘recognised’ ports. And the BF have been working away trying to build their own Electronic GAR Portal – at great expense (reinventing the wheel) – but it doesn’t look likely to be launched this year. Failure of that or any flawed prenotification system reinforces the voices which call for restricting XBorder GA to limited airfields.

The review of regs – well no-one knows where that is right now.

So all I can say is that the leaflet is no indication of imminent actions or a guide to current policy.
I would expect BF to want to own the GAR portal then close down all other avenues as well as probably imposing their desired version of new regulations.
Everything is speculation because engagement and consultation is not a natural state for BF. Also, because the last formal consultations were 2015, BF could come up with anything.

brgds to all
John Murray

Thanks for the update, John.

Restricting GA to a few airports would be a total disaster for GA, obviously. But then the GAR would serve no purpose; the UK would be like mainland Europe (no GAR system, and have to use the few customs/immigration airports to travel outside Schengen).

Actually Peter the Europe thing is interesting. Its not universally via ports of entry

Holland and Belgium have copied the GAR prenotification but Belgium still wants you to arrive at a manned port as well as prenotifying.
The grief of France withdrawing customs airfields could be solved by prenotification – indeed noting the way they work it would probably suit them better. The ‘day before’ email is much like a prenotification.
Germany is more bureaucratic than many imagine and I can’t see them changing their ways. Beware of being fined for not reporting outbound.

Hmmm methinks a campaign to persuade EU to adopt GAR is lurking — – arghhh no!!! the UK experience was painful and thankless enough.

brgds
John Murray

There is an overwhelming indication that mainland GA is happy with “I am allright Jack” i.e. Schengen, and there won’t be any support for a GAR system.

The UK will have to sort itself out.