Spam can be solved well enough. You have to use a quality ISP.
The real issue here is that French police almost never reply, and this is a policy. So they can cause you loads of trouble if you turn up and they don’t have the email, but you have no way of knowing if they got it. And the LR police do not publish a phone number so you can’t phone them. I now have that number, but a normal visitor would not have it.
That is what is completely stupid.
It is like you are required to stick your neck into a guillotine, in order to travel to LFBH, but you are not allowed to see if anybody is touching the operating lever.
Whatsapp gets spam too, and if you publish the number it will get plenty of spam. And most people are not on whatsapp.
If you are an airport and you demand PN (which with 9mm carrying staff is de facto PPR) then you have a duty to be contactable so an email or whatever can be verified if it was received.
Or you set up a website for PN. This is quite easy. Unfortunately aviation is full of vermin which prays on lazy airport managers so they end up with stuff like Myhandling, which is way too complicated for the job, and the airport has to pay a fee. It just needs a simple form. And with a website there are many more spam defences.
Peter wrote:
Spam can be solved well enough. You have to use a quality ISP.
Let me know if you find one. None of the ones I work with qualifies when it comes to spam. Even on applications where the fact that they know how to get to them is outright disquieting.
Peter wrote:
That is what is completely stupid.
The whole thing is completely stupid. As you describe the arrival procedure, it should be enough to land and then call them, so they can come over and do what they have to do. The underlaying problem is PPR which makes e-mail necessary at all. Or the lack of service by the airport, which could inform customs if they receive a flight plan from a non-schengen state. Then they have 2 hours or so to get off their butts.
Let me know if you find one
For a start, do not use google or google hosted email. See here but let’s keep this on-topic. You need a filtering service and this one works great. But few firms, and far fewer airports, will have a competent IT department.
But the real solution is for the police which insists in a PN but which mostly refuses to reply to emails to act illegally and pretend France has a law forcing visitors to seek out the police. It is the job of the police to know about traffic and meet them.
But this will never change – as Gallois will remind you pretty soon. No “cultural” factor will ever change, or very rarely.
This is just a tactic to reduce police workload. The only intl traffic that really isn‘t bothered by this is the scheduled airline traffic. So the police and customs have effectively reduced their workload to that, plus the oddball GA pilot who tries to jump through all the hoops rather than just landing somewhere in France first.
rather than just landing somewhere in France first.
The problem with landing elsewhere is: where?
If C+I is needed, LFAT (Le T) is France’s only properly functioning airport. But it is in the far right corner. LFRK (Caen) used to be used for this but they’ve killed it too.
They also demand a second notification 1hr before EOBT on the way there!
I guess he was referring to Schengen traffic. All of Europe is Schengen these days, except the UK, plus a few irrelevant other bits.
The LFBH measures are anti “all foreigner” regardless of schengen.
guess he was referring
Who was? CH also needs the “C” part of C+I. Norwegians probably don’t visit often but CH has a sizeable GA touring community (money, good ELP, etc).
To provide another datapoint, I flew in to La Rochelle on 17th August from elsewhere in France, so no customs needed.
Later that day, I emailed requesting customs for my departure on the 19th back to the UK. I also filed the flight plan at the same time.
On the morning of the 19th, I received a phone call from the police confirming that I was still planning to depart at the same time and needing customs. I said yes – “no problem, see you there” he said. And yes, when we got to the airfield, they turned up on time as promised. No drama at all. Took about 2 minutes to stamp our passports.
Yes this is the strange thing in so many of these stories.
The people are perfectly friendly.
The “system” is just broken, and apparently broken deliberately for some purpose.
I think it’s more a case of dilapidation… and nobody holding the reins cares.
Typical of many a problem we seem to encounter, as related here. The only fact of having designated points of entry, Schengen or not, EU or not, is scandalous.
As I’ve mentioned so many times, let’s introduce the same requirements to the ground base transportation system.
Typical example for tomorrow’s flight to LECD for what will probably be one of, if not the most famous EuroGA fly-in 
So what about introducing these measures to all cross border traffic? Any good reason we have to play this game, and not the ground based vehicles?
PS
Rant over… for now 
