I’m planning a trip to Greece next year. One of the places I intend to visit is Kithira LGKC. I had considered flying there directly from Croatia. But what the journalists call ‘a normally reliable source’ told me that Kithira LGKC is not a port of entry. This puzzled me a bit as my airfield info had labelled it as ‘Customs’. So I looked up the airfield in the Greek AIP where, unless I misinterpreted the entry, it said that Customs and Immigration available during airport operating hours.
So, the question is – can I rely on the Greek AIP entry? If I roll up with my best tourist smile, having flown in from, say, Croatia, will I find an equally welcoming smile at the airport?
TJ wrote:
can I rely on the Greek AIP entry
Have you checked the NOTAMs and AIP SUP?
Airborne_Again wrote:
Have you checked the NOTAMs and AIP SUP?
Yes – can’t see anything of relevance to this question in either
Give Skyserv a call.
Dave_Phillips wrote:
Give Skyserv a call.
Yes @TJ email them, contacts provided top right in what Dave posted, and they shall reply you soon.
SkyServ are the only handler in Kithira.
They (after CAA) are your only source where you can rely “as a normally reliable source”.
Details about handling in Greece
www.aopa.gr/info
Paragraph 12.
This “is Kithira a Port of Entry” thing has been around for years. I recall seeing it when I went there in 2011.
At the time I disregarded it (after some enquiries) as a mistake in the AIP, but who knows? If the AIP says it is, it “should be impossible” for Greece to prosecute you.
How can information from a handler rank higher than the AIP?
BTW the fact that Kithira is AFIS not ATC doesn’t indicate anything because Sitia LGST is also AFIS and is a Port of Entry.
Peter wrote:
How can information from a handler rank higher than the AIP?
Because they are “on location and now” and I trust more this source. They communicate with pilots via email and phone when probed and the information they send comes directly from CAA. Someone could also email directly local CAA but I consider the handler more reliable in swift communications.
AIP is an INFORMATION document. Without underevaluating its content or significance, I simply rely more on “live” information and email comm’s make it easy since you don’t need to call etc.
There are A) ports of entry “International Airports”, there are B) “National/Municipal Airports” who do not accept flights off Greece (lets not start the schengen discussion again!) and there have been in the past C) airports from the second category who have accepted for some limited period specific charter passenger flights from abroad.
I recall from recent past Kithira LGKC, Paros LGPA and Naxos LGNX as some of them with a Dash7 (I think Tyrolean) flying in few days of the week in summer from central Europe direct with passenger services.
Maybe these cases where an exemption set up just for these flights by the state and maybe GA could benefit/was benefiting from that and maybe Kithira LGKC for example kept this exemption without “expiry” while others terminated it when the charter flights seized for the season.
That is why I say only an airport based operator like a handler could reply to this. CAA could also reply to such queries but in their case there may be a language barrier (rare) or IT issue when it comes to swift communications. Handlers are doing this by definition as part of their job, officially they are obligatory when you go there so you pay them anyway, so why not ask them for the service even in the planning stage ;-)
From here
Snoopy wrote:
Just for completeness: The AIP is not legally binding. Hence “information publication”.
Malibuflyer wrote:
At some point in time it’s enough with confuscating a discussion with throwing in hypothetical pseudo-legal objections which are not existing. There is neither any objecting European law nor is there any national Austrian law that in that case says that AIP is not correct. It is completely irrelevant whether AIP is formally a legally binding document or not (btw.: for all practical purposes it is).
Fact is: You must not depart IFR from a VFR only airfield – full stop.
All I wrote was “the AIP is not legally binding”.
Sorry to bother you.
99% of the legal system is working with technically “non legally binding documents” – and 100% of discussions here. Every judge (in Germany but I guess it is the very same in Austria and any other country) has a code of law on his desk, that is published by some (private) publisher and hence is no “legally binding document”.
EASA Part FCL in the form we quote it here is also not a legally binding document. It is an edited version that does consolidate the effect of several legally binding documents together.
It is just completely unpractical to really work with the legally binding documents. If it is not a major change in regulation, those legally binding documents are typically structured like "sentence 3 of paragraph 2 of … is amended by the words “and aircraft” ". You had to read dozens of such legally binding documents to figure out what the current version of a given rule really is.
Therefore outside of a proseminar in advanced law theory nobody really cares if a specific edition of a law is formally “legally binding”.
Malibuflyer wrote:
At some point in time it’s enough with confuscating a discussion with throwing in hypothetical pseudo-legal objections which are not existing. There is neither any objecting European law nor is there any national Austrian law that in that case says that AIP is not correct. It is completely irrelevant whether AIP is formally a legally binding document or not (btw.: for all practical purposes it is).
Several European AIPs state that you need 2 COM radios for IFR. EASA has made an official statement with detailed reference to regulations which shows that this is wrong. There are other examples.
