is 6 hrs PNR for Customs (meaning: Immigration to us 
)
I like the options they offer: AFTN (OK with the AFPEX tool) or Fax 
The telephone option likely needs a French speaker.
But doesn’t that text say that a FPL (flight plan) is OK for the Customs PNR?
Alex – if you can’t find a fax machine, I can send a fax for you using my email2fax facility, if you send me your letter as a PDF.
In both places if you are landing out of hours you are very likely to have no one too see.
On a curious note, at one of these airfields I have been told once “There is no one here, so do you still need to land here? if you know what I mean”
The other time, I have notified Le Havre I was going to stop there for customs and then hop to deauville (both out of hours but Deauville doesn’t do out of hours customs). They called me a bit after (using the number from the flight plan!) and told me customs had told them they weren’t going to be there so I didn’t need to stop, and that that would be legal.
In the first case I still stopped, not in the 2nd case (although didn’t get things in writing)
On a curious note, at one of these airfields I have been told once “There is no one here, so do you still need to land here? if you know what I mean”
The other time, I have notified Le Havre I was going to stop there for customs and then hop to deauville (both out of hours but Deauville doesn’t do out of hours customs). They called me a bit after (using the number from the flight plan!) and told me customs had told them they weren’t going to be there so I didn’t need to stop, and that that would be legal.
The airport would not be acting legally – unless the police actually told them they were not interested
But, normally, the way the system works is that if say there is 2hr Customs PNR you have to give the notice and (if say you are waiting to depart from there) you have to wait out the notice before you can take off – because the police reserve the right to turn up anytime during those 2hrs, right up to the last second, and they reserve the right to not tell the airport.
That is all part of the way the police inspections work. You are not supposed to ever know if they will turn up. They don’t have enough people to cover every airport, and if you could somehow find out if they are coming, it would compromise their “intelligence based” way of working.
I was at LOWZ 2 weeks ago and they made me wait for 2 hours. Even the airport would not be told if the police were coming. The police decision is kept secret.
That is the normal way and works both ways. The police do not normally communicate operationally with airport staff, so if e.g. you file a flight plan to fly there, say 5hrs before ETA, the OPS office sees it is non Schengen (or whatever) but they will not notify the police office 5m down the corridor, so when the inbound is on final approach the policeman (who sees it on his monitor) will call up the tower and tell them to refuse a landing clearance. I had this done to me at Padova, Italy, and I know where the respective offices were So, usually, a flight plan does not work for Customs PPR/PNR, when it obviously should! Why? Well you could bang your head against a brick wall asking why this 1970s coal-mining-union job demarcation still goes on at airports.
There was a Shoreham to Pontoise scheduled service a while ago (now stopped) which – according to a public report by one of the passengers – did a touch and go at Le Touquet to clear Customs. I guess they must have got some sort of permission, because the whole plane would have known what was happening.
They don’t have enough people to cover every airport,
Such things are low priority. Most of what they do regarding customs is undercover work and tips etc to get the big guys. The other stuff they do mostly to be visible to the public.
Peter wrote:
The airport would not be acting legally – unless the police actually told them they were not interested
On that instance they told me that the police told them they wouldn’t be coming and to tell me that so I didn’t have to stop – I didn’t get it in writing but though I’d just follow their instructions, especially since I didn’t expect anyone to welcome me at Deauville either.
On a more annoying detail, I couldn’t land at Deauville (told by Lille that VFR plan cancelled as 300 ft OVC). Couldn’t go IFR either as the CAA has only had my papers for 14 working days so I couldn’t legally use my newly-aquired IR (it took 34 days!), so had to divert to Caen, where waited for weather to improve but ended up renting a car (I had option of taking off from Caen and land when no one at Deauville to see if VFR or not (with ceiling then BKN 005) but ended up just renting a car.,
That doesn’t sound good. I started a thread on “unilateral” flight plan cancellation here
IMHO ATC do not have the right to cancel somebody’s flight plan because the wx is sub-VFR. How do they know the pilot doesn’t have an IR? If he has an IR, or there is a RHS passenger who has an IR (and can legally take over as PIC – this is often done by VFR pilots) then the PIC could request an IFR clearance, and this is 100.000% legitimate on a VFR flight plan.
How can a flight plan be “canceled” in flight? Surely that can’t be right. I’m surprised, especially as French FIS do not take in-flight closures (edited from cancellation) over the radio when you’re in sight of the field, but insist you call them when on the ground.
I am not sure. I think they might just have meant “you can’t come to Deauville” and that it was badly worded. I wasn’t going to argue as conditions near IFR minima anyway and I couldn’t tell them “I passed my test but they haven’t sent me the paper saying I can fly IFR” (especially when Caen was a reasonable alternative)
French FIS do not take in-flight closures (edited from cancellation) over the radio when you’re in sight of the field, but insist you call them when on the ground.
Which I never understood by the way. It’s clearly written in the AIP that it is possible. Still, in practice, they usually deny to take closures in the air. Anybody know? Guillaume perhaps?
