This is newer
Well, it contains sea ans land crossing points, so the updates probably come from these.
And it is a “Notice from states” again…
When it comes to requests motivated by a diversion for technical incident or the atmospheric circumstances, users will not be required to comply with these notice but will nevertheless cause the intervention of border control services.
I know that has been done, when bad wx usefully happened on the return trip from some small French airfield so the Customs stop could not be made 
Once, a massive CB parked itself right over Caen. I don’t think anybody cares, and this is done quite often in aviation. Personally I wouldn’t do it on the flight into France because you are then much more vulnerable.
In 2012 there was a scheduled airline service that started between Pontoise and Brighton by “Brighton City Airways”. When Pontoise lost the customs service, it had to make a stop at another port of entry; Rouen. I remember seing it once at Rouen, landing, taxiing up to the terminal and just standing there for a while with the engines running before getting clearance to taxi back out for departure. They eventually gave up in May 2013.
In my recollection, they were told, before they started, by the French that Customs (Immigration, to be precise, of course) would be reinstated at Pontoise. So, ever since they started that service, they were stopping at Rouen, and in the later stages one passenger reported a T&G at Le Touquet But the French shafted them and never reinstated Customs, and eventually the service stopped. One reason given for the stopping was that the descent and climb back up cost them a few hundred quid.
In my recollection, they were told, before they started, by the French that Customs (Immigration, to be precise, of course) would be reinstated at Pontoise.
That does rings a bell. It also sounds reasonable in light of the 24 hrs PN introduced in Dec 2011. And in Aug 2012 customs went from 24 hrs prior notice to NIL
What a way to kill a business.
Yeah, I don’t get it. Somebody is offering to land a plane in your country, pay some 3 figure landing fee, the contents of it spills out of the door and proceeds to spend a load of €€€ in your country, and…
It has the hallmarks of a “finger-up to you, we are the police, we can do what we like regardless of economic considerations, and we will now show you” type of gesture. But in retaliation for exactly what?
France is like many countries (in Europe, mostly south of about N46 ) in that you can get away with quite a lot, until you p1ss off somebody who feels important, and then the sky falls in. A lot of people like that, and I can understand that. The drawback is a lack of transparency, and a resulting mafia-like behaviour in official circles.
From a practical point a view.
1 you only need customs if you cross the EU border, eg to Switzerland, and Toussus is definitely a customs airport (you may fly from Toussus to Switzerland). Nevertheless, check the NOTAMs
2 you need a Schengen port of entry from the UK to the continent. Toussus is not a Schengen port of entry.
To get the latest official list, the best method I designed is to google
“Update of the list of border crossing points referred to in Article” with the name of the country
For instance
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Update+of+the+list+of+border+crossing+points+referred+to+in+Article%22+France
My opinion is that this is the only valid list, and that as long as it has not been amended, you may rely on it (cf. below)
It’s up to France to introduce penalties. I could not find any penalty in the French legislation when only people enjoying the Community right of free movement cross the Schengen border from/to France. I dare not try it though. I think I would prefer that a French national lands somewhere in France, and then tells us how it was…
If you’d fly from a non Schengen port of Entry in France to the UK , obviously I cannot see how France could penalize you. What would happen in the UK? I don’t know, I’d like someone else to try it for me.
Applicable statute below from Schengen Borders Code (Reg CE 562/200)
Article 4
Crossing of external borders
1. External borders may be crossed only at border crossing points and during the fixed opening hours. The opening hours shall be clearly indicated at border crossing points which are not open 24 hours a day.
Member States shall notify the list of their border crossing points to the Commission in accordance with Article 34
(…)
3. Without prejudice to the exceptions provided for in paragraph 2 or to their international protection obligations, Member States shall introduce penalties, in accordance with their national law, for the unauthorised crossing of external borders at places other than border crossing points or at times other than the fixed opening hours. These penalties shall be effective, proportionate and dissuasive
The “50 airports” was before 2013. It is mentioned here (page 38) and I did that presentation early 2012.
The EU publication you refer to in the presentation is from early December 2011. LFPT and LFPN are off the list. A friend who is based at LFPN told me back then he would continue to fly from Toussus to outside-Schengen destinations until the information had been published in the FR OJ and/or the AIP had been updated. Then came the NOTAM in August 2012 that put a stop to it.
People are lamenting about this also on PPL/IR under Airfield Notes.
We can still hope the current NOTAM will not be renewed when it expires on March 31st, but given recent history, I wouldn’t give that a snowball’s chance on a hot day.
If you’d fly from a non Schengen port of Entry in France to the UK , obviously I cannot see how France could penalize you. What would happen in the UK? I don’t know, I’d like someone else to try it for me.
Nothing happens in the UK because no UK law has been broken.
However, next time you enter France, you might get hassle.
But in reality one doesn’t. Let’s say you depart from Yvrac via Caen to Biggin Hill, but don’t land at Caen and instead, when approaching Caen, you divert to the UK. The Q which needs to be asked is what mechanism there exists in France to detect this. The departure airport (if it is on the AFTN) will get an ARR message when you finally land, so they will know you failed to clear Customs. Do they care? Maybe, they could phone Customs who could then arrange to “do something nasty” next time that aircraft arrives in France (they probably won’t have the pilot’s name, so this is something any syndicate member needs to be careful with). But Yvrac is probably not on the AFTN. I know for a fact that many/most small airfields are not. In some cases the AFTN function is done by a nearby big airport (e.g. Brac LDSB uses Split’s LDSP’s AFTN connection, with the messages being phoned or faxed). So there are various ways the “connection” can break and you get away with it.
And the captain always has the last word and can declare, when approaching Caen, that the wx is hazardous there. There could be a nasty cloud with a base of 5500ft so Caen could be reporting CAVOK, so no “officially reported” evidence will exist afterwards.
The ATCO at Caen could know that Yvrac cannot be used to leave France, so they could prohibit the diversion. What is the chance of a French ATCO knowing that? I don’t know. I have never heard of that happening.
It has happened in the UK, in outrageous circumstances where a FISO refused a landing to somebody who arrived without having sent a GAR form to the airfield. That was 2x outrageous because an airfield has no right to see a GAR form; it contains personal data which nobody is allowed to see unless they are under the Data Protection Act. But this is very rare.
Personally I wouldn’t do it too often.
Can the French get somebody who didn’t land in France afterwards? Definitely!
A friend who is based at LFPN told me back then he would continue to fly from Toussus to outside-Schengen destinations until the information had been published in the FR OJ and/or the AIP had been updated. Then came the NOTAM in August 2012 that put a stop to it.
Pontoise officials were telling openly to UK pilots that they can continue flights to/from the UK, for many months after Pontoise went off the list. Personally I never followed that advice but many did.
My opinion is that this is the only valid list, and that as long as it has not been amended, you may rely on it (cf. below)
You are referring to the EU list of ports of entry communicated by France. If I understand you correctly, you are implying that Schengen ports of entry are published by the EU based on data provided by member states (this is actually what the document says), and that the EU (eur-lex) is the authoritative source for this information. This would imply that Légifrance no longer is authoritative – their list has not been updated since 2008 and still contains a lot of A/Ds not on the EU list.
It’s up to France to introduce penalties. I could not find any penalty in the French legislation when only people enjoying the Community right of free movement cross the Schengen border from/to France. I dare not try it though. I think I would prefer that a French national lands somewhere in France, and then tells us how it was…
A friend based at Toussus witnessed customs control a flight inbound from Lausanne, implying that they had not filed the PN required by NOTAM. He told me they were threatened with a fine of 1,500 euros. The pilot was eventually able to produce proof that he had notified them as required by the NOTAM.
If you’d fly from a non Schengen port of Entry in France to the UK , obviously I cannot see how France could penalize you. What would happen in the UK? I don’t know, I’d like someone else to try it for me.
By doing so you may have attracted their attention and they might let you know next time the A/C enters France. Flying to Toussus from the UK may be a different story; they are likely to wait for you upon arrival.
Agree it’s a bit of a mess finding a full list on the status of french airports re customs (entry of goods) and police? (Entry of people).
A pragmatic procedure I’ve adopted is to check french AIP for a specific field, see what is says and then call them to confirm. Even though not receiving a written proof of their statement this has always worked out so far.
Regarding additional procedures, what’s happened lately is that more fields now have customs PNR via an email which is listed in the AIP for the specific airfield. E.g. a lot of IFR training flights used to be done at LFGJ for pilots at Lausanne with no formalities except ats fpln. Since 2 yrs or so, LFGJ has customs 4hr PNR on week days,longer PNR on weekends. Since Switzerland is part of Schengen but not the part for free movement of goods, one has to fill in a simple form and email at least 4hr in advance (in this case to Customs organisation of Lyon). If customs want to drive to the airfield and check they will do so but in most cases they don’t. All in all pretty simple but of course it’s an extra step that needs to be planned before flying.
I’ve seen increasing use of this procedure for apts in France, same form but different email address. From quickly looking at the notam earlier in this thread re Pontoise, I recognise the email and think it’s this procedure that needs to be followed (email the form and you’re good). I could imagine this is what happened re the pilots being checked there, they could show that they had emailed the form in advance and hence complied with the notam.
Hope this helps and give some comfort that it’s fully doable to fly to more fields in France than you would think, albeit with some extra admin and prep. But of course, it was all easier a few years back…
in terms of list, the EUR-LEX list has no legal validity.
OTOH the list in legifrance is contradicted by NOTAM.
My take on this is that if you comply with the notification, you’re in the clear. I agree it’s a grey area, but the NOTAM only states a shortcoming of the Police and AIP and the Legifrance list show you’re in your rights (and i think you are indeed).
Obviously you might still get fined and then you’d have to fight it, which is mildly annoying
On a brighter note, I talked about that on a french pilot list and people based there said that ADP expects Police to be back again by the end of the year and actually hope for before summer 2015.
Fingers crossed for those who need it :-)
