It would make sense. On Tango, they will be able to „grab you“. If you park on say Golf you are out of their sight and out of their control.
They informed me that Tango will be very busy this weekend and that they will charge handling plus towing (?) for some reason. So, likely it would be more than 50€ on top of the usual fees.
We will try the grass parking one more time. It will not be „my“ plane and we will hand-tow it into position anyway.
I’ve just knocked up a report on Cannes here.
Apart from the French ATC strike (not related to the airport but a massive hassle if you have just a phone) the only issue I had was the French-only self service pump 
It took a long time to find somebody.
The staff are brilliant; very friendly, smooth, polished and basically like at every other “bizjet” airport.
I last parked on the grass years before that and it was pretty rough.
I am informed by a local pilot that Tango parking is mandatory for foreign arrivals (i.e. from outside France).
No info on that though on either the AIP, the NOTAMs or the airport website.
Typical French, a bit ominous procedures.
Anyway, I am planning on arriving from France.
Last summer arriving from both Germany and Spain, it was never mandatory to take Tango (We parked at Mike or Golf).
boscomantico wrote:
Anyway, I am planning on arriving from France.
I don’t know if anything changed due to Covid, but the last two years the rule was as follows; arrive/depart internationally → use the regular entrance/exit. Arriving from or departing to France, you’re allowed to take the small entrance/exit as depicted in the image below. There’s normally someone from security in a little office that asks where you’re from. Showing ID/Passport and you can pass. It saves some unfortunate walking in 30’C (However, I like the walk to the regular entrance/exit, as you pass by some fancy jets)
BTW I noticed they’re evaluating the possibility to operate a RNP approach directly to rwy 17. That would allow the first instrument approach into rwy 17 without doing a VPT.
Dank je wel!
So no forced parking Tango when flying in internationally. Interesting that nobody knows quite for sure. It is obvious that it‘s an airport that struggles with:
Just like Calvi. And others, particulary on the Mediterranean and Altantic coasts.
France (if using the more „commercial“ airports) is really getting a bit tedious and expensive, unfortunately.
@boscomantico the answer is to avoid expensive commercial airports in France.Its quite easy to do, there are enough reasonable or zero landing free parking non handling airports/aerodromes to go to. Cannes LFMD is expensive because it is a very popular place to go (especially for the rich) It is perhaps also very popular because people based there can pay an annual fee to cover all landings and if you do a reasonable amount of flying, it is not at all expensive.
On the Atlantic coast Biarritz and Bordeaux Mérignac are considered expensive but there are several other airports in the Bordeaux area which have very low landing fees and no handling. The same is true on the Atlantic coast. Even La Rochelle LFBH only charged 12 Euros landing fee for a DA42 just prior to lockdown.
What does it cost to land at a similar airport in Germany?
Hey, I am certainly one of the biggest supporters of GA flying in France. But the direction many airports are going for GA is steeply downhill.
Of course, the small airfields are great, but in many „nice“ places, you just have zero choice for nearby airfields.
Want to go to the northwest of Corsica? LFKC.
Want to go to the eastern Cote d‘Azur? LFMD
And want to go to Biarritz? Zero nearby alternatives to bloody LFBZ.
And even where fees are still reasonable, you nowadays have parking PPR, and even then often only grass (gravel) parking (Béziers!) for SEPs. La Rochelle also has only grass parking for that landing fee. And you often have to find some bizjet focussed handling agent if you want parking on tarmac.
I didn’t even know there were bizjet handling agents at LFBH, I don’t mind parking on the grass and if I really want hard standing I just talk nicely to the tower. Although as I used to have a hangar space there I have never really done long term parking.
What about Cuers LFTF for the Mediterranean coast or even Avignon LFMV (€11 DA42) and hire a car and drive down, Propriano LFKO (€12 Da42 ) or Bastia LFKB for Corsica, Biscarosse LFBS or Mimizan LFCZ instead of Biarritz. Yes, sometimes the places you want to go are not as convenient. But one has to accept that it is more difficult and more expensive to go to mix with the airlines and/or the private jets but unless you really want to, why bother? The smaller places are much more welcoming to GA.
Even in the USA, GA pilots sometimes prefer to avoid the large airports.
Of course if you fly a ULM you often have much greater choice of convenient cheap airfields, hundreds of them. But you would have to park on the grass.
For it’s size, location and clients LFMD is still way friendly to light cheap GA SEP but I am biased by UK perspective, in summer one may have to skip there or plan for alternatives
Montpellier LFMT is reportedly a good airport in that area of France.
But in the end LFMD works very well. You just drop some 100 euros there.
Is Myhandling mandatory for all weights? It used to be only over 2000kg or some such.
