Thanks Jason, I sent them e-mail, waiting for reply. BTW airport’s web lists wrong e-mail address which sends automatic reply referring to address you provided.
Comiso replied and it seems that I’m going there. Rental car prices seem to be a bit higher than in Catania but this will be offseted with cheaper handling and parking.
The trick for Catania is written up here. Use google translate if required. I try to keep the site as current as possible.
Use this form, nominate Fly Service as your handler and announce
that you will park at the aeroclub. Fees should be acceptable and parking should be guaranteed. Hope this still works. The last confirmation I have had was in 2013.
Don’t underestimate the driving time between Comiso and Catania. Losing 3 hours (1.5×2) wouldn’t be worth say 100 Euros to me.
The best way to get into Catania is talking to aeroclub directly. The last time I have been there I paid absolutely nothing and they have been extremely helpful. The regular handlers are quite expensive. The process of getting through customs has been a bit awkward though but that was mainly the reason of the aeroclub at that time not being 100% up to speed with the specific rules. They should have sorted this out by now.
I don’t know if the aeroclub still offers the services as it was not well accepted by the airport authority but somehow they found a way. You might want to call them and try to find out if they still offer their hospitality.
boscomantico wrote:
Don’t underestimate the driving time between Comiso and Catania.
I plan to drive to several places – Catania, Palermo and few others, spending day or two here and there. Basicaly, I just need airport to land, take the rental car and drive around.
I returned from a 7-days trip to Sicily: Comiso, Ragusa, Agrigento, Palermo, Enna, Catania, Taormina and Syracusa. Comiso airport was ok, 90€ for landing, handling and 6 days of parking. Rental car was cheap (165€ for brand new Skoda Octavia 1.6D SW – big car with huge trunk) and we spent only 55€ for thr fuel, driving close to 1000 km.
Peter wrote:
What I have come across is that the club (which operates under some sort of tax concession – one Italian pilot explained this to me but I don’t recall the details) is not allowed to sell the fuel to visitors, so they have to pretend they are filling up a club aircraft. The degree to which a visitor can negotiate that is likely to depend on one’s Italian language competence, and may involve a backhander (a bribe). IMHO, a non Italian speaker is likely to get precisely nowhere. I recall some hilarious scenes where people just smiled at me mysteriously, and I didn’t think it was because I was good looking
My experience in Italy has been that even without Italian and landing at clubs without English, that somehow miraculously the issue has always been solved. I must be more charismatic than you! And BTW absolutely no bribes involved.
Peter wrote:
That all makes sense, but the problem is that if you land somewhere, and you don’t have enough in the tanks to go to the next place which definitely sells avgas to visitors, and you can’t speak Italian, and nobody speaks English, you have a problem…
BTDT… answer: go to the nearest hotel & get to know the locals. One of the best parts of flying is going where you had no intention of going, lending at a place you never knew existed, and meeting people you would never otherwise have encountered. The unplanned excursions often turn out to be the most interesting.
It was much cheaper, it’s GA friendly, renting car was easy and it was closer to my first point Ragusa.