VISAS

[AndyDRHuddleston]

Does anyone have any experience with sending aircrew on short term flying secondments to the middle east (or anywhere). If so, do/did the aircrew need VISAS for the time spent there and to whom should I apply.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanx

WTNOPS <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Depends where you are sending the crews, and what nationality you are sending.The "TIM" is a useful guide.If u are working on someone's behalf then get them to sort visa's as in the case of the Middle East you normally need a "sponsor".. .If you need visas quickly try some of the firms in London that can process quickly.

[CargoOne]

That's one of the biggest headache of our ops when we need to make crew positioning on very short notice. When the copmany have access to jumpseats of major scheduled carriers than it is much easier, because then you can avoid visa problems in most cases, but to send crew as pax on scheduled services to middle east, south-east asia, africa and some other regions is always a problem.

[OO-AOG]

Usually we ask our handling agents to arrange them for us, without any trouble so far.

[CargoOne]

OO-AOG,. .Handling agents are helpful, but their arrangements are useful for crew arriving on their own aircraft. But for positioning on schedule services it not works - crew will be refused from boarding without valid visa for destination in most cases because they will be treated as usual pax.

btw, who are you using for o/f and lnd permissions on Far East. How long they processing o/f Myanmar?

[OO-AOG]

CargoOne

Usually if you have a good handling agent, they will arrange visa upon arrival, even with a positioning airline flight. We have done that before at various airports in Middle East. You need to ensure to have a local staff available to escort the crew from the a/c through immigration. We are regulars in the ME but not often going to the far east, havn't been to Myanmar for years though.. .But back to the original topic, I just had this specific problem today, I had to position (in a rush) a Cpt to SVO with AFL ex GVA. Well our handling agent in SVO couldn't guarantee the visa granting early enough and Aeroflot denied the boarding of our crew. The Russians just changed again the whole visa procedure and it's now painful to get one at very short notice.. .Anyway isn't all this part of the fun of our various daily ops <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[OO-AOG]

CargoOne

By the way, if you have problems with permits anywhere in Africa or Middle-East, I suggest you try Hadid International (hdlg agent) in DAM. They offer really first class service, you will get your permits within a few hours, for an affordable price.. .You might ask them for Myanmar, I wouldn't be surprised if they had connections there as well.

Cheers. .OO-AOG

[CargoOne]

OO-AOG,. .ref your problems with positioning to SVO - that's exactly what I'm talking about. We faced such problems in many, many cases. Even if you have arrangements for crew visas in destination airport, crew might be refused from boarding at origin airport. Now add that sometimes we need to make positioning with one or two connections and then it is almost impossible. Year ago we have chartered C604 vip-jet to delever crew to some point in dark Africa - that's was the only option due to visa issues.. .I know Hadid very well however I'm not impressed with their performance. I understand you are in businness jet operations - that's much easier than cargo operations from traffic rights point of view. If something goes wrong in Luanda (everybody on weekend at CAA) then you will not receive traffic rights for 3 or 4 days, and Hadid, UAS, Moufad, An-Aviation Services Egypt and other agents can do nothing with it - one of our recent nightmare.