I’ve had some comms with the airport re the 48hr PN. The objective is to get them to agree that a PN of at least 48hrs will be acceptable and will allow the whole group to arrive and depart within a flexible time frame – provided that they have everybody’s details well in advance.
Everybody knows the police are present every day; it’s a sizeable airport.
Replies thus far have been ambiguous, so further emails (expertly translated to French) have been sent.
17 people in the telegram group currently, so it looks like a reasonable group will arrive. It was also pointed out that Nantes LFRS has permanent customs, and is less out of the way than Le Touquet LFAT which is a bit of a detour.
Please keep this thread on-topic.
Peter wrote:
It was also pointed out that Nantes LFRS has permanent customs, and is less out of the way than Le Touquet LFAT which is a bit of a detour.
Nantes LFRS require mandatory assistance & slots (COHOR?) if you are not ‘visiting the aeroclub’ in parking Romeo (highly unlikely if you need customs), there is Saint-Nazaire LFRZ with relaxed PN in that corner/route…
For someone coming from Schengen Laval/LeMans are good choices that explicitly don’t require 24h PN for Schengen !
I tried to get the airport to accept a more general advance notice but the “police dept” (who were on the CC) never communicated, and OPS washed their hands of it.
I just arrived back from La Rochelle.
I emailed a couple of days before the trip to the emails on the website, no response but I didn’t really care.
No police arrived to check passports, just paid the landing fee in the hut and left via the pilots gate. In fact no one checked passports for the whole trip, border force didn’t even meet us at Tatenhill (EGBM).
I amended my departure information with about 38 hour PN, not the full 48.
On departure we just walked out to the plane and off we went. Tower said they had our flight plan and we just departed, no problems at all.
My conclusion is that while the website says 48h PN I don’t think it’s worth stressing over, especially for departures. I’m sure if you arrived a day early to the airport and wanted to leave they wouldn’t stop you.
There were a number of other foreign visiting aircraft there so clearly not everyone is deterred. Also why not just call the airport if it’s so concerning?
Avgas was 2.85/L from the self service pump. Copilot provided refuelling services.
This is good but really completely ridiculous, to publish a " 48hr or we will throw you in jail " notam, then ignore the flight completely, and to top it all, not operate the stamp counting scheme which is supposedly mandatory in schengen.
I told them in no uncertain terms that this is not a way to run an airport, and thanked them for helping to destroy our fly-in.
But clearly the local police is running some “make a point” scheme (like Caen above) and has zero interest in whether an airport has traffic or not. The PN address never engages in any communication, with pilots or, apparently, with the airport admin!
Peter wrote:
and to top it all, not operate the stamp counting scheme which is supposedly mandatory in schengen.
Why people say it is mandatory? Sometimes the passports are stamped for everyone, sometimes even for Eurostar they are not.
I read it somewhere; probably on the internet 
Self evidently it isn’t actually operated, but that’s not the same Q.
Can anyone check whether this “no foreign flights” notam is still present? I can’t see it in my feed (NOAA).
ForeFlight doesn’t list it either.
The AIP just states 8hr PN for all “foreign” flights
So they have strangely retained that classification, but it has improved.
