This is a pretty common issue, and most of the time there seems to be no purpose in it.
Here are some which have come up lately:
Calvi (Corsica)
Cannes
Carcassonne
Elba
Friedrichshafen
La Rochelle
There are countless others…
Sometimes twins are allowed to park on Tarmac.
How can one arrange for tarmac? In some cases you can do it if you go via handling (i.e. pay some €€€).
It can be a real problem because if the ground is a bit soft, one isn’t getting out – even under max power. One would therefore think the airport concerned might get fed up with bringing out the fire crew to move the plane.
I once managed hard parking at La Rochelle, and when the ops lady found out she protested, saying the following day they will have X (30, IIRC) bizjets arriving. I got away with it by leaving her my mobile # and saying that if they need me to move I will immediately get a taxi to the airport and move it. Reluctantly she agreed. The actual verified value for X was 1 
But I think there is a clue here: they want to keep “dirty pistons” (actual words of one UK airport manager – Aberdeen) away from the bizjets and their wealthy clients.
I am never too bothered if the grass is in good condition and not saturated. If it is, I have simply refused to park on the grass and have been accomodated elsewhere. If there is doubt it is worth making the point that if the aircraft gets stuck or damaged will they confirm they will pay for the cost of the damage! It usually does the trick!
To be honest I’d prefer the grass – very very few airports seem to have tie down rings sunk into the apron, if I park on the grass at least I can secure the aircraft better with my own tie-downs. All it takes is a badly positioned airmass thunderstorm or a pilot of a large helicopter flying far too close to result in me having to come home on the airlines and then spend time doing insurance paperwork if the aircraft isn’t tied down.
The aircraft is less likely to be moved by a helicopter too if it’s on grass. On a hard surface, with a free castoring tailwheel, it takes very little rotor wash to move the aircraft unless both main wheels are chocked with decent chocks.
If it is wet I normally ask for parking on the hard surface and it was accepted in the past whereever I asked for. Sometimes I prefer grass. I.e. at Egelsbach, the grass surface is good and they give the possibilty to tie down on a chain only on grass. So most of the time I ask for grass parking there.
That is a little unfair, isn’t it Peter? In Carcassonne there was no room on the paved apron, so there was hardly any choice, was there? On previous visits I have parked a DA40 on the paved surface.
The one time I was in Friedrichshafen I parked on the paved surface too. Admittedly it was a DA42, but I did not see a single aircraft parked in any grass. Are you complaining of shortage of parking space during the expo?
Calvi’s a disgrace
Aviathor wrote:
That is a little unfair, isn’t it Peter? In Carcassonne there was no room on the paved apron, so there was hardly any choice, was there? On previous visits I have parked a DA40 on the paved surface.
It’s not, actually. I was the last to arrive on Friday. When asking, the tower told me “parking on grass only”. So I taxied over to where all you guys were parked. I saw no way to get the airplane in there, neither under power, nor by hand (with the help of me mother, in 35 knots+ winds blowing over the apron), so I was a little unsure. What I DID see was a few free parking spots on the tarmac! At least three A/C could fit there “orderly”, and many more if one were to be creative and not limited to the predrawn parking stands. After some arguing with tower, I was admitted to use one of those spots.
The next day, blueline and I went to fuel. I realize this may be an ownership issue and who is in charge of that area of the airport, but there was a HUGE tarmac apron near the fuel pump with not a single aircraft.
Nope, I don’t think Peter is being unfair. 
I have been lucky sometimes and not lucky other times at Cannes LFMD…. But on the few occasions that I pre-arranged handling I always got tarmac….
Patrick wrote:
Nope, I don’t think Peter is being unfair.
OPS at Carcassonne were asked to reserve the hard surface to retractables… So they actually did what we asked them to.
The HUGE tarmac apron is “owned” by ENAC and there is no way for you to get in or out of there without assistance from ENAC.
Edit: by in/out i meant land/airside
OPS at Carcassonne were asked to reserve the hard surface to retractables
I wasn’t aware of that. Last I heard was they had 6 places on tarmac (painted positions) and that was the end of it. All the rest on grass.
There was a lot of other space e.g. in front of the deserted hangar behind the fuel pump.
They did say, after everyone was already there, that the flying school apron could be used, but it was too late.
The funniest bit was the dialogue with ATC when I could not get the pump to work. I called up ATC. They said nobody around, till maybe Saturday or Sunday (it was Friday). I asked whether there is any fire crew who might know. Answer: “no”. I should have got it recorded and sent the mp3 to some of the AOC operators who fly there e.g. Ryanair
