Avoiding high FRAPORT and HANDLING costs in Greece

petakas wrote:

We are straying off on a different subject here though !

Maybe you should present that scene in a different post. Could be inspirational.

petakas wrote:

What you miss there though is your own accomplishment of flying there yourself and the satisfaction that comes with it.

Absolutely, I couldn’t agree with you more! In Europe, there are just a few reasons, why I would fly commercially. Since I’ve got my license in 2017, I choose my destinations mainly based on where I can fly by myself. Greece is still on my list though, but it will need some more time and money, before I would go.

Since this has strayed so far from the topic of handling at Fraport airports, allow me to post this interview which I came across:
https://www.bp.com/en/global/air-bp/news-and-views/customer-views/view-from-the-cockpit1.html

@petakas

These two reports (of the same trip) are reminder which place(s) to avoid:
https://airports.euroga.org/record.php?id=721
https://www.euroga.org/forums/trips-airports/12816-a-trip-to-corfu-lgkr-greece-during-covid-coronavirus-times

And it is not only the fees. It’s also the fuel prices for Avgas. Seems they are going up 20 cents each year, no matter what the wholesale price is. 3.60€ per litre? That really hurts when you need 200 or 400 litres. The “spread” to the the prices in the rest of Europe (Croatia ~2.00€) is becoming bigger and bigger every year.

petakas wrote:

To be honest, if someone considers all the details, it just does not make sense flying GA in Greece.

In this context I can report on our little adventure in Greece end of June. Our plan was to enter the country in Ioannina and continue to Megara the next day. From there we would go to Athens International, LGAV (aka Venizelos) by taxi/train to pick up a rental car. We intended to return the car a week later, spend the final two days in Athens and finally return to Megara. We would use Ioannina as port of exit again.

I checked NOTAMS well in advance and there were some about the availability of the LGMG. We moved around our schedule several times and I must confess I made a mistake: we planned our arrival at Megara on Greek Whit Monday (June 21st) and the the AD was NOTAMed not available on that day but I simply missed that.

We sent a mail to Megara asking for permission two weeks before our intended arrival. Megara replied asking for the max crosswind component of our plane and our passport numbers. We provided the data but nothing happened. A few days later we asked by mail if they needed something more – no reply. We called and a friendly guy said he couldn’t find any mail but we shouldn’t worry. A week before our intended arrival we called again, this time the guy seemed a bit annoyed and said the military wasn’t that quick. On the Friday before Greek Whit Monday we were already in Dubrovnik and called again. The guy was friendly again but said he couldn’t see any mails. We said it’s a bit urgent, we wanted to arrive on Monday and he said no problem, you’re approved into Megara, he even added “looking forward to seeing you”.

On Monday we departed LGIO for LGMG. Once we came closer, ATC told us they couldn’t reach anybody in Megara. We explained what happened ATC tried again but nobody picked up the phone. LGAV was our alternate and we couldn’t stay up in the air, of course, so we diverted. On the ground Skyserv handled us. Everything was a bit chaotic in the beginning but the lady who took care of us was very kind. We learned that parking was restricted to less than 24 hours and was going to be restricted to less then three hours a few days later. However, they gave the AOPA discount and handling wouldn’t be too expensive. We discussed our options and decided to pick up the rental car and split up the next day: one of us would hop over to LGMG while the other would drive. However, there was another NOTAM that said Megara would accept civil aircraft only in the afternoon and we were actually not allowed to stay that long at Venizelos.

We called Megara on Tuesday morning and this time a lady picked up. We asked if we could land despite of the NOTAM. The lady said yes, no problem. We were a bit suspicious she didn’t sound like she had understood our question.

Handling, landing and parking for less than 24 hours was about 150€. But when I called delivery for the clearance they replied that Megara wouldn’t accept me. I asked if they would accept me later in the afternoon. Delivery was very reluctant to investigate that but after a while the answer was no.

Now we were standing on the apron and didn’t know what to do. We had a rental car in the parking lot but the 24 hours were already over and actually we had to leave. However, the nice handling lady felt for us and hinted we could just write an email with the request to extend the parking by 48 hours. There are four stands for small aircraft and only one was occupied – by us. There was no reason why this shouldn’t work even if we iterated that a few times, so we could spend our vacation as planned.

Indeed it worked for us. Extension was approved each time we requested it, although on the last request they said it wouldn’t be extended any further. When we finally left we had to pay 190€ in addition to the 150€ we had already paid.

petakas wrote:

Only our passion for this hobby and the amazing off airport experiences, especially in the non Fraported islands, are what keep it going.

Well, for us even on-airport it was actually a good experience. It was a bit chaotic (at least partially our fault as well) but we got help when we needed it. There are still a few islands on our bucket list so we will come back However, we will probably avoid Megara and Venizelos in the future.

It seems to me you really need a pretty big dose of masochism to fly in Greece. What a mess!

You have to “pick your battles”, as the saying goes; see previous posts about how to fly in Greece easily. Sure; some places are probably off the immediate to-do list.

But places like Athens are best done by airline; except for sightseeing and such it is just another big noisy dirty city.

I think the biggest single “loss due to fraport” is Samos.

Terbang, what you are endured would deter 99% of pilots to ever fly to Greece again.
Peter could ask them to be their honorary tourism minister (like steveo for the bahamas)