I suspect many pilots must have gone down this route – Croatia is by far the most obvious stopping place to Greece – got a NO, or got a divert, or whatever, and just never wrote it up, in all the years.
Until I come along, with my persistence, a plan to actually get to Kithira with my girlfriend, and then willing to go public with it 
“Port of Entry” without Customs or Immigration is a whole new concept in the world of aviation Well, Greece signed Schengen but doesn’t operate it, so the signature is relevant only for the flight into Greece when the departure airport doesn’t need Immigration. Most peoples’ eyes glaze over when one tries to explain this concept. So why did Greece sign up? Presumably it was a condition of EU loans – like Fraport which we know rather well and which has pretty well trashed Greece as a GA destination, and like the other Greek govt purchases from “up north”.
chflyer wrote:
This AOPA web page is the bible for pilots wanting to visit Greece and usually has the best and most current reference information for planning a trip.
Thanks, me and you thought the same so I let them know yesterday and the page was updated today. (changelog on top).
One new thing they also added was the page itself being available as PDF for download at the bottom so pilots can have it available off line.
As always the shortcut is www.aopa.gr/Info
Peter wrote:
I suspect many pilots must have gone down this route – Croatia is by far the most obvious stopping place to Greece – got a NO, or got a divert, or whatever, and just never wrote it up, in all the years.Until I come along, with my persistence, a plan to actually get to Kithira with my girlfriend, and then willing to go public with it
“Port of Entry” without Customs or Immigration is a whole new concept in the world of aviation
Indeed you diged out a wrong information but I can detect what the problem is.
AIP reports (documents) the ABILITY of the airport – what it is able and allowed to do by State/CAA in an ADMISTRATIVE way i.e. the state allows international travelers to arrive/depart there. So it is an INTERNATIONAL Airport administratively i.e. the way it is listed but not the way it is operated in practice.
Now in practice Kithira has had in the recent past some Airline (B737) seasonal charters in summer which came from ITALY (EU&Schengen) dropped some pax off and continued to Kalamata LGKL. It was a clever move from the company because they found this gap in demand. The reverse (return) was done later in a week with the next visit of the next inbound 737. This I believe took place for one~two summers as COVID was coming in. Then it ended.
A similar charter scheme with a Dash 7 turborpop, I believe from Austria, was flown directly to Paros LGPA which is not International airport I guess with some sort of local procedure as waiver.
To cut the long story short, Kithira has had the ability to act as International when needed. In practice (day in day out) they currently cannot because CUSTOMS are not regularly there and PASSPORT control (Border Police personnel and their online IT infrastructure) is not technically available these days in Kithira. This means the Kithira LGKC is classified as International but cannot act as International due to the absent resources (which the state would never budget for every day presence for the occasional GA flyer from Europe). Its all about budgeting.
Other airports in Greece have the infrastructure available (in hybernation) and you can request the HANDLER on demand to have them there for you.
Customs charge some 30 or so € and process you.
Same for Police if they are available (and I believe they do not charge).
More details on this weird regulation in www.aopa.gr/Info paragraph 13 (which has been discussed to death again in here few years go).
As long as Greece remains the Southeastern physical border of EU … especially the times we are going through … such local customs regulations and police passport/ ID card checks are highly unlikely to change in a true EU free circulation ethos.
petakas wrote:
To cut the long story short, Kithira has had the ability to act as International when needed. In practice (day in day out) they currently cannot because CUSTOMS are not regularly there and PASSPORT control (Border Police personnel and their online IT infrastructure) is not technically available these days in Kithira. This means the Kithira LGKC is classified as International but cannot act as International due to the absent resources (which the state would never budget for every day presence for the occasional GA flyer from Europe). Its all about budgeting.
This is what HO (Hours of operational requirements) means in practise. So from a GA perspective HO could just as well be HX or PPR.
petakas wrote:
As long as Greece remains the Southeastern physical border of EU … especially the times we are going through … such local customs regulations and police passport/ ID card checks are highly unlikely to change in a true EU free circulation ethos.
Well, then why is Greece a member of Schengen? It should be possible and reasonable to fly e.g. from Italy or any other Schengen state to Greece without passport control, yet Greece appear to have opted to forbid that for aviation. Same thing with customs, no customs should be needed for entry from another EU state.
So the whole AOE issue for flights from Schengen/Europe should be mute, but isn’t. Why?
I reckon I can see the problem which that German pilot above got himself into.
To get out of LGKC you need a long range plane, or your options are quite limited, due to the late opening slots (afternoon only, mostly, and quite late too).
To get out of LGKC to LGIO is possible only on Monday or Thursday (due to timetable non-overlap on other days). On Saturday or Sunday you could do it in an F16.
LGST is the other obvious one but they are refusing international traffic due to the “medical” job protection procedures.
LDDU has the great opening hours but cannot be flown to legally (non schengen) and you certainly could not file it on a FP as a destination.
His other option would have been to contribute some €400 to his exchequer via LGKR, which nobody wants to do. LGKR is how it was always done (I did that in 2011) but now it is a €800 exercise.
But it is a lot less work to slag off something without posting detail which might be useful to others.
Well, then why is Greece a member of Schengen?
I would speculate that signing up to it was a condition of the “big mexican fiesta” of EU membership and the financial support package. These things are always wrapped up together in a package deal. I am certain Greece never had any intention of actually operating the “open borders” which are implied. I am equally certain that Brussels always knew Greece would never operate it – just like they always knew Greece was submitting basically fake financial figures to get in Which was ok all the time Mrs Merkel kept signing the cheques, which she was, until she stopped doing it.
LGIO and LGKC make a “customs charge” of some €40 for all international flights, too, inbound or outbound, schengen or not. That’s a complete farce as well. It’s not as if the flight was to Kathmandu…
Peter wrote:
I am certain Greece never had any intention of actually operating the “open borders” which are implied.
From AOPA Greece:
13. Must I takeoff or land at an “International Airport” if I’m coming from abroad, even if via an EU / Schengen state?
Yes, even if you are flying to / from SCHENGEN treaty members and/or European Union state, according to Greece AIP, you must take off / land at a designated “airport of entry”.
According to written reply we got from the CAA in 2005 the obligation comes from local (national) legislation related to customs control and not passport control. They admit that Schengen member state civilians are allowed of free circulation without passport control BUT this shall not be confused with European Union member countries customs legislation still in effect. They continue by explaining that according to EU regulations 3925/91 & 2454/93 customs control between EU states borders has indeed been terminated BUT according to article 20 of National (Greek) Customs Code (Law 2960/2001 in Government Journal 265/A/22-11-2001) “aircraft coming from other EU member state or third country are obliged to land at airports supervised and controlled by customs authorities. The departure of aircraft which have as destination other EU member state or third country is allowed only from the above mentioned airports”
So this requirement is related to the vehicle and not the physical person(s). Go figure …
Basically the national customs law says that customs can stop anyone with any vehicle at any part of the country for a spot check. Greece’s customs use this legislation to require entering / exiting aircraft to pass via international airports (where customs officers are present) even if they do not do the spot check in practice. They do not focus on the persons on board but the vehicle. They want to have the ability to do the customs check if needed. Most of the times, but not always, the customs check does not take place because they check beforehand things like original departure, final destination, nationalities of people on board, nationality of aircraft register etc.etc.
NOTE: In many cases, but not always, CUSTOMS will charge (via HANDLER) a 30~33 Euro fee for their presence at the airport for you. If they were scheduled to be present at the airport anyway during the time of your arrival / departure, then the 30 Euro should not be charged to you. The 30 Euro charge is officially for the positioning (transportation) of the Customs personnel from the customs downtown office to the airport is they were not scheduled to be at the airport at that time. The problem is that you can not know this (their schedule) and this leaves room for local interpretations regarding the need of charge or not …
List of designated airports of entry (coded INTL) can be found at AIP Greece
http://www.hcaa.gr/aip/
Part 3 – Aerodromes – AD 1.3 INDEX TO AERODROMES / HELIPORTS
To save you from searching, Greece’s INTERNATIONAL airports are:
LGAD* LGAL LGAV LGBL LGEL* LGHI LGIO LGIR (LGKC only to/from EU+SCHENGEN states) LGKF LGKL LGKO LGKP LGKR LGKV LGLM LGLR* LGMK LGMT LGPZ LGRP LGRX LGSA LGSK LGSM LGSR LGST LGTS LGZA.
Airports with asterisk* are ports of entry but exclusively MILΙTARY bases which do not have CAA presence, hence you cannot visit them under civil flights’ status.
Fuel at the above ports of entry is available only at LGAV LGIO LGIR LGKR LGRP LGSM LGST. See paragraph 22 for Fuel details.
Any law professionals on EuroGA? Is this national greek thing even legal in the face of EU law (freedom of goods movement)?
It’s probably not legal, but the EU is challenged by Greece and legally enforcing Schengen would be a political nightmare in Brussels.
Anytime anyone raises the possibility in Switzerland of checking border traffic with the EU it generates a statement by local Swiss politicians that Schengen forbids it. The difference of course is that if Switzerland tried to do what Greece is doing the EU would come down on it with lightening speed like a ton of bricks, with all kinds of retorsion measures and threats to terminate all the bilateral agreements.
Anytime anyone raises the possibility in Switzerland of checking border traffic with the EU it generates a statement by local Swiss politicians that Schengen forbids it.
A completely dumb statement since Switzerland is not part of the Customs Union and can carry as many customs controls as it pleases without being in contravention of bilateral agreements or Schengen.
Greece as usual is making up laws by ear. Not surprising for a country that’s been effectively a ward of foreign powers since independence from the Ottoman empire.
So Greece mandates (and massively inconveniences) people to fly only to certain airports to/from the country, so that customs can theoretically „check only the vehicle“, which in practice never happens.
Doesn’t sound very „customs union“ like to me.
