The other thing to remember is that the airport may not get the flight plan till very late on the day.
Homebriefing.com transmits a VFR flight plan to the destination only some hours before EOBT, so if you "send" the FP 2 days ahead hoping it will act as "PPR" they will not get it. (Actually, they deal with VFR flight plans merely by transmitting them to the departure ARO
).
AFPEx does the same flight plan retention, apparently, transmitting it only on the day of the flight.
When IFPS itself transmits IFR flight plans to the destination I don't know but I think it is similarly only a short time before EOBT. Anyway, they cannot pass it on before they themselves receive it from the filing agency.
There are a few airports who say openly that a flight plan acts as "PPR" but it is only a few. I recall Prague saying that. But that isn't really "PPR" because the flight plan is not acknowledged as "OK" by the destination. It is more like "PNR". I think quite a few "PNR" airports in France work this way.
There is no technical reason why an airport with say "4 hrs PNR for Customs" could not advise Customs when they get the FP say 6hrs beforehand, but most of them absolutely will not do that - and I very strongly suspect this is deliberate anal retention / job demarcation / union rules / empire building / all the usual nice stuff that goes on in "old economy" or State-owned enterprises
And some airports will turn you away - even from short final. I've been turned away in Italy (Padova).
Filing a flight plan is an Air Traffic requirement not an airport operator requirement.
That's true but there is no denying that the FP ends up in the Tower for all to see
If the ATCO up there chooses to not advise the ops office downstairs (in PNR cases) that is just anally retarded job demarcation.
Actually the OPS office usually has a printer or a display showing the flight plans, so they would have to deliberately ignore the appearance of a flight plan, knowing the pilot did not file PNR/PPR. Would they do this so they can give him a bollocking or even enable ATC to refuse a landing clearance? No, of course not
Nobody would do that would they?
It is trivial to set things up so an airport has integrated communications. A flight plan is filed (or a free text AFTN message is transmitted, using AFPEx) and everybody there gets a heads-up. Customs get advised and turn up if the incoming is non-EU etc. But few airports bother to do this.