Can I thank the excellent gentleman from Swissport who drove me to the Holiday Inn Victor Hugo last night...no cabs at LFMN at midnight...

ps Mike Jenvey...please be careful about logging out of your AOL account at FBO's...you were still logged in at EGGW the other day when I went to use the computer at Harrods...

so that's the date!!!?

I don't think I'd have an opportunity to bring you back home, but what you think about a romantic cruise (me and you) from south france to england??

Hi Cirrus17. Cirrus Aviation in the u.k. is now defunct, at least by name. The new company is called Executive Jet Group. They operate two Falcon 900s from (usually) Farnborough and Paris Le Bourget.

well my mother told me never to accept lifts from strangers, and I still have no idea who you are!

bye bye
 

Well, tomorrow I fly back to a land of supermarkets open past quarter to five, and where people drive on the right side of the road- that's the left by the way!

Goodbye to all you lovely pilots, huge hugs and thanks to anyone who brought me milk over the summer :D

I hope you all have lovely autumns and winters!

Kim xxxx
and ps- anyone who is flying to the london area tomoz on a ferry flight....!

Cheers Kim - you brightened up our days in Nice - best wishes. Stay in touch.

4HP

improvement...
 

well, remembering the main cause for this thread, I found an improvement at LFMN.

During my last visit (we made 2 flights out of LFMN) everything worked quite well. catering and fuel was there on time, everything went fine.

Maybe this thread woke a few people up, that was my intention.

And, finally, since last friday I now know who Kim is.

All the best to you!

:D

well the day has come...
I'm flying today from paris to biggin hill...

You wish us a good winter 'cos you are coming back in spring
or is your aviation experience finished?

Jobs in the Midlands
 

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone knows of any job openings in private aviation in Birmingham or Coventry from November and onwards. Working for Swissport in Nice at the moment but moving to sunny :hmm: Birmingham in the beginning of November.

Grateful for any information!!!

time for update
 

...today they were not able to deliver fuel for us. NOTAM only saying something like "carriers are requested to have double fuel on board". Coming from Kiev, going to Kiev in a HS 800 XP I don't know how I shall carry fuel for both legs. Maybe in the cabin? We refuelled in LOWW after picking up our passengers in LFMN. Extra Fuel stop. Full (yes I checked that) Fuel truck was refueling a XLS nearby in LFMN. But he was not able to come to us since we had a different Handler. Yes I love this airport- obviously it's getting worse!

Just had a note come through, Cannes have run out of fuel, no notificaion at all! Crew informed upon arrival?

It is a MESS!!!!
 

Arrived at airport on Saturday a bit more than 4 hrs before departure time (arrived in LFMN on Wednesday and at that point handling agent had cancelled our rooms at our previously confirmed hotels and moved us to some remote place outside of Nice) and was told that we had to wait for fuel at least 5-6 hrs.
Handler's (Aviapartner) attitude towards the happening was " have you not been in Nice before?" or "that is the way it is, there is nothing we can do about it, it is not our problem" !!!

Tried to reason them that it is actually really your problem. I just arrived in an international 24/7 airport and I am paying you for some service.

We did manage to get fuel in couple of hours by a little miracle, but I know people who actually waited for more than 5 hrs....

Catering arrived in time, although without any of our dishes.
After 2 hrs and 4 phone calls where they blaimed that they have never received any dishes from us nor they know where they could be, we started to be little bit on the verbally agressive side, or at least the C/A's did.
After C/A yelled at them on phone stating that all the dinner wear were actually almost irreplaceable and very very expensive and we think they must have stolen them, suddenly everything was found like that and were deliverd to aircraft. Great?!?

However, we were parked at parking K (no APU allowed) and requested a towing to stand 1s, where you can actually have electricity, about 1:30 hrs before departure. You can repo by towing 1 hr earlier.
We eventually got the towing truck front of us 15 mins after our original dep time and after 5 phone calls to handler.. Even then, just 20 meters from the line where you can turn your APU on, we were stopped by airport authority's Marshaller while on towing. I had just at that point started the APU since we were in stand in 30 secs and we were late by more that 30 mins and the pax had been at the aiport for more than 45 mins.

The marshaller drove his car in front of the towing truck and ordered us to stop the APU without any obvious reason, oh, except for the fact that I did start the APU 20 meters before the stand while being delayd for towing for more than 1 and an half hour.

I must say, that for the first time in my aviation career I totally flipped.
Not proud of it at all, in contrary, but this was altogether almost a nightmare.
And it all happened in Western Europe!!!

It feels like the handler and the airport authority would thing that this is a game.
Looks like it is for them, but for us it certainly was not.

We had more than 10 flights out of the LFMN in at the end of the week and all of them had some what similar experiences...:yuk

Unacceptable and with "could not care less, this is Nice" attitude all over the places...:=

Nice, Cannes, everlasting problems since I'm flying into these places.

Nice and Cannes are fully coordinated airports. The particularities are very interesting to study.

Nice is coordinated due to lack of parking slots. Papa apron is used for quick turns and Kilo for overnights (Plan A), then as we all know, our passengers may decide to leave either earlier or later, whatever. This is the gridlock, even if we can request a slot for Nice a week ahead, it will not be granted more than 48 hours at best before, pending the fact that all participating aircrafts are leaving at their respective ETD, which of course seldom happen. And since everything starts from there... Bingo !! Kilo is a "green" sensitive area, and since it is politically easier to satisty 100 persons than to fight 500 employees in the administration, welcome to 'painting by numbers" world, where 20 meters is a matter of life and death for APU usage.
Fuel : only international airport where fuel is coming by trucks from 150 km away, and a limited supply. Fuel people ( very good at painting); have a statewide commitment to have enough supply for scheduled airline ( per law). In order to meet this deadline, they just delay Biz Aviation, this is their management. If you had that during holiday's week-ends fuel trucks canot drive on the motorways, you have the picture.

Cannes is facing the same fuel issue, but their coordination is made for ATC purposes.

what can we do ? Well since all companies are waking up in summer or BIG events, the association, or lobbying group that defend users of Nice and Cannes has very limited fundings and just try to put off the fire when it breaks out. Everyone is welcome to join in order to put pressure onto authorities. ( no it is not EBAA, the local rep has no clue).

If you wish to operate in a smoother way, you have to see it a an ex-ussr operation, arrive at your ETA depart at your ETD (that you gave 15 days before); refuel on arrival, etc...

Good luck to everyone !

Longest wait for fuel in LFMN was in july 7 hours.

You have to be smart with the fuel in the summer.. Land with max fuel you can. If you have a couple of days then go the day before departure and top up.. Catering is only EVER late when FAs or copis dont call to confirm the day before and check on the day that its ready, which they should all be doing anyway.

Pick up, even when busy is never that bad. People need to chill. They dont have the capacity and despite the odd rude dude, its okay. And I would rather be in Nice then Cannes or Toulon...

Nice is Nice - it's a French thing! If you have the option, recommend Cannes as they are much more user friendly, and walking distance from acft to FBO. Oh yeah, fuel truck usually arrives just after pax depart,

Bon Vogage.

1 Bingo

No one has mentioned Landmark ? We are now using them as they have there own fuel through AVITAT and they normally will only fuel their handled aircraft ? We haven't waited more than 10-20 mins for fuel anytime !