No idea why, but there are a lot of places that seem to be finicky about selling fuel.
Some places sell it because they are business who make money out of fuel, some places use it for themselves and likely have VAT/Duty paperwork when selling to others maybe as it’s de-taxed?
No idea why, but there are a lot of places that seem to be finicky about selling fuel.
And if an aeroclub runs the aerodrome – common in France – then it is usually volunteers that will take time out of their day to come out to the aerodrome to fuel you up, and may live some distance away. If you land ’on the off chance" then the person you speak to might not know the procedure to fuel someone outwith the aeroclub etc…
A lot of aeroclubs cannot sell fuel to outsiders because they operate under some “sporting body” tax concession which disallows this.
In practice what this means is that if you turn up and “speak their language” they will fill up your plane while pretending to fill one of theirs (for a cost plus say 10%) but if you are a “foreigner” they can’t trust you to keep your mouth shut, so no fuel.
Obviously few people are willing to discuss this openly but examples are known in Spain, France, Italy, and even Greece.
