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Advantages of Schengen - Croatia to join next year

One of the most freedom creating agreements for GA flying in Europe has been establishment of the Schengen area. In vast majority of the cases, it allows GA pilots to utilize the many hundreds of small GA fields around Europe (Schengen area) not permanently served by customs. Planning a direct flight from one Schengen country to another is a world of a difference instead of having to narrow down the available airport list to only customs airport which pretty much means larger airports, with all the drawback these have.

In one recent example, I visited Wroclaw in Poland and coming directly from Denmark I could fly without issues directly to the smaller airfield EPWS instead of the large airport EPWR with its associated costs and bureaucracy. No passport control, no nothing, just land on a grass field and you free to go. Same to small airfields in Sweden, Germany, Austria, Czech rep. ect. And it’s even better if you want to go to some remote place like an airfield in the mountains or an island where no large custom airport is available.

Outside Schengen one is essentially forced to make a customs stop in an larger airport with all the cost, trouble and time waste associated with that before continuing. Therefor I think its great news for GA pilots in Europe that Croatia looks to be joining Schengen beginning of next year, and potentially Romania and Bulgaria also at later date..

Here

THY
EKRK, Denmark

I’m looking forward to it. It’s a major timesaver.

EBST, Belgium

I fully agree with all you say, @THY, except that the advantages of Schengen are related to freedom from immigration and passport control, not customs.

Most but not all Schengen countries are also part of the customs union which is why customs is often thought to be part of Schengen.

Switzerland is part of Schengen but not the customs union, so Schengen has not brought all the advantages you suggest for GA flights into and out of Switzerland.

While the number of Croatian destinations without immigration and customs is not that large, having Croatia part of Schengen will also allow the use of such airfields in the other Schengen countries, a big step forward. Let’s hope it does indeed happen on Jan 1, 2023.

P.S. This will nonetheless be positive for GA pilots in Switzerland, because the Switzerland entry/exit to/from non-customs airfields for GA flights (with conditions) only applies to flights to/from Schengen countries.

LSZK, Switzerland

THY: Sure. Most of us have been looking forward to that for many many years.

Unfortunately, Croatia lacks a network of small airfields in the right locations for it to really bring a significant advantage. Vrsar is a mess and poorly managed. Unije essentially closed. Medulin is nice, but no fuel. Grobnik is good for Rijeka, although LDRI remains more convenient for visiting Krk. Further down on the mainland, there is nothing in the Zadar, Sibenik and Dubrovnik areas. Obviously, in many areas, the difficult terrain doesn’t help. Sinj is sort of in the Split area, but not really close-by.

Many more small islands “should” have an airfield, but don’t. Maybe the Schengen join can give a boost to the development of such fields, like on Vis. But there seems to be some opposition to small airfields even in Croatia.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 31 Oct 09:17
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Outside Schengen one is essentially forced to make a customs stop in an larger airport with all the cost, trouble and time waste associated with that before continuing.

Unless it is Croatia (or the UK) where 1 policeman = Immigration and Customs

The real issue here is European job creation / job protection / job demarcation, all union supported and safeguarded. There is no logic in it. It is just a load of old trade unionists looking after themselves.

I hope Croatia doesn’t do what France did and make GA airports practically inaccessible to non schengen traffic – which the UK always was. It would also affect Swiss traffic, but Switzerland is a lot nearer than the UK so can make an intermediate stop. On most days, I would not be able to make an intermediate stop before the Croatian airport closes.

So I keep my fingers crossed that Croatia isn’t going to be stupid and remove the police. Brac will probably be OK because it has some international traffic.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

chflyer wrote:

Switzerland is part of Schengen but not the customs union, so Schengen has not brought all the advantages you suggest for GA flights into and out of Switzerland.

Same for Norway. Except Sweden just don’t care about customs. Flying TO Sweden from Norway requires nothing (on behalf of Sweden, except possibly flightplan, but I’m not sure if that is due to Norwegian legislation alone or also Swedish legislation). The other way, not so much.

  • For boats : Nothing
  • For cars : Nothing
  • Walking, skiing, skating, or whatever other means of travelling you can think of : NOTHING
  • For GA : 1h in advance when going to an airfield with customs office. 4h in advance when going to a field with no customs office.

The thing is, this has nothing to do with Schengen or EU at all. It has “always” been like this (including Finland, Denmark, Iceland), but Sweden also cared about customs earlier. When inside Sweden, you are of course inside EU also, so business as usual. Schengen makes it possible to fly directly from Norway to any small field in Germany for instance (for those who fancy 5h flights ) And flying from Germany to Norway is the same as flying from Sweden to Norway.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

I guess I’ll benefit more than the pilots from current Schengen area. There are not many airports in Croatia besides the international ones. I guess UL pilots will benefit more.

However, for me this will open large number of airports in Italy, France and Germany that are kind of hassle now because requirement to land on international airport prior to continuing there. Additionally, this will save me between €50 and €80 per international flight on my side which is the cost of inviting immigration control to my base airport LDVA. Going to maintenance shop at LJBL will be simplified, avoiding immigration at LJLJ and saving additional €50 for that landing.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Same for Norway

Indeed; I didn’t mention Norway because almost nobody from there goes to Croatia (using GA). It’s a bit far…

A loss of Mali Losinj would be a big loss for me – similar to Le Touquet which is a different thing but the overall value is probably similar.

But… it is dead easy for Croatia to avoid this situation. They just need one of these

It’s funny how fast the world changes. If it wasn’t for Mad Putin’s adventure, police at LDLO and LDSB would be assured, due to the Russian “businessman” traffic.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The airport is still surrounded by Non-Schengen/Non-EU countries (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania) and while there is not a lot of traffic between these countries, I would still expect Losinj to retain Customs/Immigration.

Anyway, the total number of direct GA flights between the UK and Croatia per year must be in the two digits.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

chflyer wrote:

I fully agree with all you say, @THY, except that the advantages of Schengen are related to freedom from immigration and passport control, not customs.

Yes your right, thanks for clarifying.

boscomantico wrote:

Many more small islands “should” have an airfield, but don’t. Maybe the Schengen join can give a boost to the development of such fields, like on Vis. But there seems to be some opposition to small airfields even in Croatia.

Certainly creating a new airfield is not something trivial, but Croatia has the potential and having been outside Schengen hasen’t helped in any way.

But even if we just remain with the same airports (Vsar, Losjni) its still an advantage on the departure end, because in my case I have to spend an extra 15-20 minutes in some cases going to the apron presenting passport leaving the Schengen area. Now I would be able to just file, fuel and go directly to Vsar fx.

LeSving wrote:

The thing is, this has nothing to do with Schengen or EU at all. It has “always” been like this (including Finland, Denmark, Iceland), but Sweden also cared about customs earlier.

Nordic countries has their own passport union

Peter wrote:

Unless it is Croatia (or the UK) where 1 policeman = Immigration and Customs

Yes when you arrive in Losjni with that border police officer in that little shed its kinda funny :-)

Peter wrote:

So I keep my fingers crossed that Croatia isn’t going to be stupid and remove the police. Brac will probably be OK because it has some international traffic

Realistically Im not sure they will keep it in the small airfields although I hope so for you UK pilots – maybe a prior notice thing? They might get some traffic from other Balkan contries too. I sometimes have arrived from Belgrade fx. But realistically how much trafic from non-schengen? I recon its going to be mostly Austrian and German pilots. I would think it’s going to be a ineffective job waiting for that occasional aircraft arriving outside Schengen. Maybe Emir knows something?

Last Edited by THY at 31 Oct 10:56
THY
EKRK, Denmark
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