EU customs check in for Brits

[piperboy84]

What's the short and skinny rules on flying to the EU?

1. Do you have to land at the first customs port you come to, or can you fly over the entire country (France for example) and check in at your destination on the eastern side of the country ?

2. If your flying to the Spain from the Uk but don't need to stop in France do you have to for customs or can you just keep going till you get a customs port in Spain?

The flights are VFR and all FP,s and GAR will be in order.

[Jan Olieslagers]

1) yes
2) yes
and VFR or FP have nothing to do with the customs/GAR/Schengen issues.

[dublinpilot]

You do NOT need to stop at the first available customs airport. You can over fly as many of them as you like. However the first airport that you land at must have customs and the last airport before you return to the UK must have customs.

However if you stop at the first one it gives you more options if you need to divert later as you don't even need to think about customs then.

[dirkdj]

Technically it's not customs but immigration. I would advise to clear immigration early, say at a convenient airport along the French coast. This means you can land at any airport anywhere in the Schengen zone during the rest of the trip. This gives you a lot more operational flexibility.

[Rhino25782]

Technically it's not customs but immigration.

That's a good point that seems to be misunderstood often.

As the UK is part of the EU customs union, there is really no need to clear "customs" when flying to mainland EU countries. The customs union is about free movement of goods.

The UK are NOT part of the Schengen area - which is about free movement of people. Hence, upon entering the Schengen area, it is required for aircraft departing in the UK to clear immigration. In aviation speak, airports that offer customs clearance and/or immigration are often referred to as "customs airports" but that is quite misleading.

In contrast, if one were to fly in and out of Switzerland (a Schengen member but NOT a member of the customs union), one needs to clear customs indeed. No immigration required here.

The worst case is flying from UK to Switzerland or vice versa. := That requires you to clear both customs and immigration.