Barcelona, Reus or Le Castellet ?
 

Posted a thread a few weeks ago about basing our airplane in Europe for a month next year. Seems our principal will spend the month of June with his family in or around Barcelona with sporadic trips around Europe. We've narrowed it down to LEBL, LERS or repositioning each time to LFMQ. This will be our first foray into European operations and I wanted to know the advantages or disadvantages of these airports with regard to cost and operations. The reason we're considering Le Castellet is that it appears to be hassle-free, corporate friendly and they've offered us hangar space since we're concerned about salt air issues close to the Med.

LFMQ, nice airport and very user friendly. Avoid LEBL due to large airport thinking (and prices).... you have a PM soon.:ok:

Spent a few weeeks in LFMQ earlier this year. Very impressed! No delays there and a first class service that I could not fault. Beach hotels 30 min away though.... Avoid LEBL at all cost. Too busy, and too much "Big Airport" agro.

LFMQ is the best of the three you mention.

Also slightly further away from the salty ocean air and humidity if you plan to park outside for a month.

Edit> sorry , was browsing on my phone and missed the hangar part. Good enough reason right there. Ad they go out of their way to make things hassle free and user friendly at Le Castellet.

As for LEBL you can taxi for hours, you wait for fuel for an average of two hours, and it's EXPENSIVE!

Check out P1 magazine online, the current or previous issue had a lovely article about LFMQ and the progress they have made there.

Le Castellet is the best bet, with a few provisos...

If the weather goes iffy, getting into le Castellet will be a challenge. From memory, non-precision onto one end, circling onto the other. We determined it was Cat B with a long briefing carefully written beforehand, but there might be arguments it should be Cat C...

Do get the aircraft straight into the hangar - if it's parked outside it will get covered in dust and some sort of sticky sap from the pine forests, and there are no washing facilities.

HOTAC around le Castellet can be a problem if you want some life in it. Best bet might be to have a hire car and only stay near the airport if you've an early departure.

Catering will be a big problem - no caterers there or nearby.

Others are right in saying Barcelona can be a terrible place to go in a biz-jet. Sometimes I've been there we have had great service, in and out, though with miles of taxiiing. Others, we've been stuck for what seemed like a lifetime, waiting for handlers, fuel, etc...

You could try Sabadell (LELL) just inland from Barcelona. It is a VFR airport, but that is not a concern in June.

Also, the taxi at Barcelona is via AlphaNovember, Uniform, then Sierra. Every plog I've done from there starts with ANUS. Nobody wants that...