FIR Handover - France or Belgium to London Info

This is the very old issue of a letter of agreement between France and UK, for IFR handovers.

AFAIK, the only French unit which has an LoA with London Control is Paris, specifically not Lille which does all the lower level stuff in the “LFAT corner” of France and which hands you over the "London 124.6 which UK regulars know is a silent cancellation of your IFR clearance.

In the past you had to leave France at FL120+ to get a handover to LTCC. This came down gradually to ~FL100, maybe even FL090 now. Not sure if @Guillaume is still around here these days, but he would know how low you can be at say BILGO before Paris drops you to Lille. I don’t think it is secret, although from the UK end it might be (IAW company policy, NATS ATCOs are incendiary on social media ).

Basically you needed to be on oxygen to get the handover. A suitably formed search here – example – digs out various threads.

Coming out of LFAT you will initially get Lille and they always hand you over to London Info. Maybe, in a jet, you could get Lille → Paris → London Control. More likely you will get Lille → London Info (OCAS!!! which can be a load of fun in a jet; a number of bizjet pilots get sent to gasco for that) and then (if going somewhere north) “negotiate” with them for a handover to London Control.

Belgium → UK is likely similar.

Above FL115, you get handed to by French LTA ATC to UK LTC ATC, every single time

Bellow FL80, you are guaranteed freecall London Info every single time

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I guess on these routings, you really need oxygen. So if I do Spain or France, I must route +FL115

MEA for Airways in Spain is +FL100 almost anywhere and you can’t fly off ATS routes…but it’s less relevant, the airspace is easy in Spain: you can cross the whole country VFR on one single clearance and one single transponder code

On LYD SID departure (or DVR SID) from LeTouquet (or Calais) just file FL120 and ask Tower for FL120 before takeoff? by the time they hand you to UK Alpha ATC you can hang it at FL90…

If you file bellow FL80, the FPL gets lost in the NATS FP system, if you hang around:

- French Delta LTA ATC will tell French Echo SIV to tell you to go away

- UK Alpha ATC will tell French Echo ATC to tell you to go away

- French Echo SIV will send you to UK Golf FIS

Not correct in various aspects, IME.

Being an ignorant Frenchie and not knowing any different (I only do have some knowledge of the differences through Euroga which is a great source but is not official) this is what I would have expected.
Having filed an IFPL on Autorouter and had it acknowledged with the “you’re ready to go flying message” Like you I would probably have filed FL080. At the appropriate EOBT I would have contacted LFAT control to activate my flight plan. From then I would expect to get handed over to the appropriate ATS services as I went along. Probably Lille first (there is an agreement between France and UK where there should be seamless handovers between the respective FIRs. I believe it is published in the eAIP).
At FL080 if I have reached that before handover I would be OCAS for 500ft but would maintain radio contact with a French service as I am IFR and above 3000ft.
Looking at the chart I could expect to be handed over to London information or more likely London Control on 134.125 because of the Worthing CTA. If handed over to London Information, legally AIUI they cannot refuse to accept me as they are not a controlling body. They can say that due to workload they cannot or may not be able to give you a service at the current time. Due to the agreement between FIRs, London Control should not be able to refuse you either (legally). They can however re-route you or make you hold. I normally add in the remarks section of the flight plan IFPS reroute accepted. Any refusal to you goes counter to the whole concept of Eurocontrol and indeed ICAO flight plans and their reason for being.
I can only assume that Lille had to give you the message that London Info/control would not accept you and that you would have to negotiate yourself would be because London info/control did not have the balls to tell you themselves in case you put in a complaint. Much easier to blame the French. (This last bit did not come from me but a controller in one of the ACCs who works in the Northern part of France).
I had experience of this when crossing the channel from Brest to Exeter at FL090. Brest handed me over to London Information having reached the frontier. Having just in the days before the flight read some posts from Peter on the dangers of being passed to London Info and been forgotten about or in his words “dumped” OCAS never to get back into CAS, I contacted London Info and reminded them that I was on an IFR flight plan to Exeter. There was a bit of stammering, followed by I’ll call you back" A few minutes later he came back on and said contact Exeter when in range. I thought at the time it was a bit weird that he did not give me a frequency. But I found one, did as requested and there was no problem.
Perhaps ignorance is bliss, sometimes.

gallois wrote:

Perhaps ignorance is bliss, sometimes

If you are inbound in F-reg and have no clue how it works, they gotta find a solution for you, this may involve sending you via Southend or Lands End? like they did for the poor US pilots who were flying Wick to Shoreham

FL90 Brest to Exeter is very different, it’s no mans land with OCAS everywhere and one single 10nm wide Airway owned by Cardiff & Exeter…it’s near Dover then London where things are flimsy in FL65-FL115, it’s not rocket science, UK does not have Echo down to FL65 and LTMA ATC do not offer FIS for IFR OCAS (same things as Paris ATC by the way, altough they are happy to ‘hold you’ on FIS service if you can stay 2kft bellow Alpha TMA Base when SIV are not around, say flying IFR OCAS when Echo is dis-activated: SIV on strike or bimbling at 2200LT)

Also the quality of the handover seems to depend if you are F-reg vs G-reg (or UK based N-reg)? and if you are going to Biggin vs Elstree?