Robbed at LSZB Bern-Belp

[dublinpilot]

Just because you CAN walk out directly on the apron in Bern doesn't mean it's a good idea to bypass customs if flying out of Schengen.

Now as to the bus - if you read the AIP and have the jackets with you, you can just tell the handler bus driver to bugger off and walk over to the terminal, and there's really nothing he can do.

And where did Timothy say that he did that? When I was last at Bern (2 years ago) there was a security guard at the gate (one of those revolving barriers) and he checked where your flight was going before letting you proceed, or sending you via customs.

Originally Posted by vanHorck

This thread was about someone claiming to having been robbed by the authorities where in fact it seems he wanted to take off without clearing Schengen and someone decided he needed to come back to customs....

vanHorck, that is the second time you've said that, and you haven't answered when I asked you where Timothy said that he did that.

The fact is that he did not say that he:
a) Bypassed customs
b) Was making a flight outside the Schengen zone
c) Didn't wear a yellow jacket on the apron.

It may be the case that he did in fact do one or more of those, but since he's posting here, you should at least have the curtousy to ask him if he did rather than make such accussations on assumptions.

For all we know he wore his yellow jacket, went through customs even though he was only making an inter schengen flight, and still had this handling agent demand he travel with him back to customs.

Have the decency to ask the man what happened before making such accussations.

[LH2]

Originally Posted by Shorrick Mk2

with the introduction of the Schengen agreement

May I remind you that Switzerland did not sign the Schengen agreement (as btw neither did the EEC nor the majority of the EU, which implements the absence of systematic border controls directly via EU law). What Switzerland did sign, was a couple of agreements with the EU and certain other EEA countries which implement parts of the Schengen treaty of 1985 and subsequent acquises, with very significant chunks left out--notably where it concerns customs, refugees, and immigration. Which is why one still gets mugged at the border by custom agents trying to extort whatever money they can, like nothing has changed. That is to say, nothing except that along with the "Schengen" agreements, a bunch of accords aimed at the EU tax authorities gaining the right to stick their noses into your banking system, and that of Liechtenstein which was strong-armed into it, were also slipped through.

To be fair to the Swiss for once, the EU public relations machine sells it as if Switzerland was fully part of the Schengen area, which most definitely it is not, and I doubt the Swiss would have voted the way they voted in this matter had they had full and adequate access to the detail of what really was being signed.

[Shorrick Mk2]

At the risk of diverging from the thread - you may. The only thing left out is customs - we are not part of the Schengen customs area. Immigration for all purposes - we are part of Schengen. Switzerland can deliver Schengen visas, and can bar individuals from entering the EU (as it did with a few Lybian dignitaries a while ago much to the displeasure of the EU, that ironically is now busy bombing said dignitaries). Any EU citizen can walk straight in and take up employment the next day. There are no systematic border police checks on intra-schengen travels.

FYI: Schengen

Which EU countries have signed but do not apply the Schengen accords (other than the UK)?

[vanHorck]

Timothy,

Could it be that you did not follow procedures about clearing customs and/or wearing high viz jackets?

If so could you please change the subject of your thread?

Thx

Bert

[Vizsla]

Timothy failed to mention that he was marching his 80 year old mother on the hike, she was probably relieved to catch a bus at any price

[LH2]

Originally Posted by Shorrick Mk2

At the risk of diverging from the thread - you may. The only thing left out is customs

I think you mean, apart from (referring to Schengen Convention 1990):

• Article 2(4) on controls on goods
• Article 4, as far as controls on baggage are concerned
• Article 10(2)
• Article 19(2)
• Articles 28 to 38 and related definitions
• Article 60
• Article 70
• Article 74
• Articles 77 to 91 insofar as they are covered by Council Directive 91/477/EEC of 18 June 1991 on control of the acquisition and possession of weapons
• Articles 120 to 125 on the movement of goods
• Articles 131 to 133
• Article 134
• Articles 139 to 142

Note how the first two are especially relevant, as they provide a justification for continued border controls (for "customs purposes only" ). In practice, that means that yes, you can cross the border freely... as long as you are on foot and naked.

- we are not part of the Schengen customs area.

See above. My guess is this was the excuse used to con a few extra Francs out of Timothy.

Immigration for all purposes - we are part of Schengen.

Not when it comes to refugees and a bunch of other details.

Switzerland can deliver Schengen visas, and can bar individuals from entering the EU (as it did with a few Lybian dignitaries a while ago much to the displeasure of the EU, that ironically is now busy bombing said dignitaries).

Would that be the same individuals Switzerland ended up apologising to and paying compensation for having the audacity to attempt a prosecution? There are bigger/better thieves than you, granted.

Any EU citizen can walk straight in and take up employment the next day.

And this is the subject of a separate, pre-existing agreement.

There are no systematic border police checks on intra-schengen travels.

I'll try to keep that in mind next time I take the A40 to GVA. If they're not police they must be impostors then.

FYI: Schengen

Just to quote a couple of passages from that:

The same but different:

Switzerland possesses two special features compared to all other Schengen countries:

the customs border and thereby the goods controls continue to exist.
Customs officers and border police are one and the same.

This means that our synergy-rich customs system will be retained and within the scope of customs controls will check the identity of people in future as well.

Honest, we're not checking you, just the goods you are carrying in your pockets:

A customs check remains a customs check even if on the occasion of a customs check involving people for reasons to do with staff safety or in connection with carrying out customs duties, identity papers are examined and queries are activated via the information system. This will not become a people check, it is and remains a customs check.

...and then we'll shaft you regardless:

However, should, within the scope of a customs control, police suspicions become evident then it may turn into a "people check involving an initial suspicion". Independently of a customs control, in the case of an initial suspicion by the police, at any moment a people check may be carried out at the border crossing.

Their own conclusions, not mine (but my emphasis):

Conclusion

With Schengen a new dimension has been added to the job of the border guard - it has become more varied, more flexible and more demanding.

Working at the border crossing, with mobile units, train controls, train station controls and airport controls all enrich the scope of duties of the border guards. The border guards and thereby the Border Guard Corps will be even more involved in national and international security cooperation.

Then they get a bit confused. They say:

Today there is scarcely anything to be got from systematic controls with the high traffic volume.

And right on the next paragraph:

The Border Guard Corps must operate systematically

And finally (again emphasis mine):

What are the consequences of this for the Border Guard Corps?

* Activities and Border Guard Corps strategies will change little
* Border infrastructure will remain
* Responsibility for the police forces remains with the cantons
* Cooperation with external partners but above all with internal partners, in particular the cantons is to be intensified.
* Switzerland as a special case due to not being a member of the customs union = goods checks remain. This fact provides many advantages.
* More security thanks to information (Schengen Information System [SIS]) and corresponding intervention potential (Border Guard Corps).

So much for "borderless travel", eh?

[LH2]

Bert,

Originally Posted by vanHorck

Could it be that you did not follow procedures about clearing customs and/or wearing high viz jackets?

It could be. However, the sad reality is that they are a bunch of muggers who make every effort to relieve you of as much money as they can using whichever silly scheme they can think of. Not the individual guards, but the government as a whole--although some guards do apply themselves to the task with great passion. Are they on commission or something?

If so could you please change the subject of your thread?

The subject of this thread is entirely accurate and well in keeping with the historical reputation of the lands at hand.

For the record, I do tend to respect that sovereign entities are entitled to do whatever they see fit within their territories, which is why I put up with e.g., travel to India or much of West Africa. However, I resent being repeatedly ambushed into preposterous money extraction schemes, as I have in Switzerland until the moment when you say enough is enough.

They can go thieving and I have no problem with that, but let us not pretend that it is anybody else's fault. If that's how they want to play it, fine, I now go and spend my money elsewhere... and I no longer give free rides into town to fellow aviators who happen to come from the other side of the mountains. Hospitality works both ways.

[rmac]

If you think you were robbed....try this for size...........last October I had a weather diversion in to Brussels international in a light twin. The landing fee was acceptable for this type of airport, ATC were fantastic..........but mandatory handling at Abelag set me back 750 Euro

Can anyone beat that...robbing bar-stewards !!

[IO540]

FWIW I have never been ripped off in Switzerland in any way which is worse than getting ripped off by e.g. taxi drivers in Brussels. The place is very expensive, yes.

What I thought was a ripoff was being charged about 40 euros for being N-reg, by a Customs woman at Mitilini LGMT. When I asked her to confirm it, she quickly changed her story and called it something else.

Is this any worse than being charged some £400 by the mandatory handling cartel at most of UK's big airports? The landing fee at Gatwick is about £100 which is a lot for a burger run but not so bad for what would be an H24 facility with Customs etc. The problem is that the airport management has permitted / encouraged the £400 mandatory handling cartel. I think that collusion between airport empire builders and the handling agents is by far the biggest scam in light aviation.

[Jan Olieslagers]

last October I had a weather diversion into Brussels international in a light twin.

Excuse my skepticism, but was there really nothing else available? EBLG EBOS EBCI EBAW EHEH LFQQ EHRD must all be within 50 NM - or was it 60 - and all have a certain degree of IFR facilities. But not all operate 7/24, admittedly.

Then again, ISTR some argument about a G/A handling monopoly being a violation of some EU ruling. Not sure you couldn't fight back on that, even now.

[rmac]

Yes JO, I will excuse your scepticism. Weather was at minimums all over the low countries accept at that moment Brussels international,. I had a technical fault which would have increased the risk significantly in the case of a missed approach, so took the best weather option available at the time................and then got robbed for safe decision making.

BTW, not worth challenging a competition issue for a single incident, will cost more than the recovery will bring,

[vanHorck]

Thank you IO for bringing some sense into this thread.

Shame Timothy did not bother coming back to explain.

[IO540]

ISTR some argument about a G/A handling monopoly being a violation of some EU ruling. Not sure you couldn't fight back on that, even now.

I gather that mandatory handling is illegal if there is just one handling agent.

But this is moot in practice because what happens is that if you are running A Big Airport you invite bids for the franchise from Harrods Handling, Signature, and 1 or 2 others, and they all agree (under the table) their pricing to be similar.

The real issue is not in what these posh bizjet-service outfits charge (I don't think their well dressed and impeccably mannered gurls are on the NMW); it is that Mr Big Airport Manager (with an MBA from the Univ. of Upper Warlingham and wearing a well ironed yellow jacket everytime he leaves his office) has allowed this to happen in the first place, without making a provision for lighter GA to use the place

It is a rot which is setting in all over Europe.

The cause is probably in the continuing romantic view of aviation, where jets are seen as desirable and anything with a prop is not.

The dumb managers have no concept of marginal costing i.e. all the time the runway is unused, and since absolutely nobody working in traffic management is paid per movement, if you let a TB20 land there and get £25 off him, that is £25 you would not have made otherwise.

The cost of allowing that would be a zero-handling "GA entrance", suitably separated from the passenger jet apron. Might have to employ 1 person in there to collect the money, etc. A lot of airports do exactly that.

But most airport managers are too thick to see this and are happy to waste the place for the sake of seeing a number of jets each day and the runway sits empty 95% of the time while the ATCOs and their assistants and the fire crew and everybody else are costing them millions a year.

[IO540]

That aside, I cannot see any rational reason for the existence of unrequested 'handling' charges - being escorted or specially dressed around aircraft is unnecessary, and there are better, zero cost ways of achieving the same customs security.

IMHO it happens because the handling agents are working hard to make money, and a bit of subterfuge is regarded as OK - as in much of aviation as a whole.

For example, take this common medium-size airport scenario: there are a lot of based firms which have a special landing fee deal. There are also aeroclubs with similar (even lower) deals. There are also handling companies.........

Any GA pilot visiting one of the above firms, or the clubs, avoids paying handling charges.

But the handlers don't like that, so they use various tricks to get money off you.

Last time I was at one such local-ish airport, the 'mandatory handler' quizzed me on exactly what 'maintenance' work I was having done. He obviously smelt a common local wheeze, where people arrange to park at one of the firms when meeting up with somebody... On another occassion, he said I need to go via him even if going in for maintenance (which was flat wrong).

Handlers often drive up to you after landing, to trap you into an implicit use of their service. Only the locals will know enough to resist, but the locals are not going to get approached

The people who we have to blame for these scams are essentially the airport managers who allow these practices to continue right under their nose, despite a torrent of complaints. In some cases the manager is getting a backhander from the handler, facilitated by e.g. there being "no available parking" unless the handler is used.

But the other party to blame are the bizjet owners who pay anything (short of a grand) without batting an eyelid. They have spent £10k flying there so £500 handling is immaterial.

Put all this together and it's no wonder there are airports where you land and an army of parasites descend on you. Incentives always work the same way on people, whether it is an airport, or a bank

I have never flown to say India but have heard plenty of reports of several officials lining up in a line and you have to get a roll of US$ out and pay them off one after the other. Then they charge you duty on the unused fuel in your tanks. A load of crooks.

This is one reason why I always advise pilots to contact the destination airport and check out the 'deal' before flying there. Anyway, one needs to get stuff like Customs PNR, avgas, opening hours, etc, out of the horses's mouth. No good reading the AIP; most of the southern European ones are full of crap.

Europe does not have the corporate transparency of the USA and never will have, because airports are mostly not an integral feature of the economy and exist in a sort of twilight zone, where the manager gets more or less anything past the usually clue-less local authority, under the banner of 'safety'.

[Jan Olieslagers]

The more postings I read on this tone, the more I am convinced that one must choose rigidly between managed i.e. commercial airports, and non-commercial i.e. club fields aka airstrips by some.

If once you have choosen to be ripped off, don't come and whine. You can't blame a commercial operation for trying to be profitable.

The trouble is, certain amenities needed for certain sorts of flying are generally unavailable at non-commercial fields. If the problem is serious enough, that will naturally change.

[IO540]

It's not that simple, unfortunately, because the issue is very random.

There are loads of wonderfully run airports. Ljubljana LJLJ, everything in Croatia, Sitia LGST in Crete, Cannes LFMD, St Yan LFLN, LTQ of course LFAT, Prague LKPR, Biarritz LFBZ, etc etc.

I've been to airports which are bigger than Gatwick (in runway size, etc) and which are totally straightforward, and cheap.

In Greece, they vary quite a bit. None except Athens LGAV are particular pricey, but the bureaucracy varies a lot.

Back here, Cambridge, Newquay, Leeds, some others. Not always cheap but efficient.

The sh**s are well known from these pages Norwich comes to mind... 2 yellow jackets confiscating my toothpaste and having a good laugh about it. But on other occassions they have been fine. Not cheap but fine. There seems to be a "personnel issue" there.

Zaragoza in Spain and Padova in Italy have been both good and totally atrocious, on different occassions. Italian airports are an organisational pi55take and are best avoided and as a result most of their GA seems to operate from strips, on mogas. But Trieste was excellent. Tirana LATI was really crap (it's run by British management).

Like I say - very random.

You get a feel for it when communicating with an airport.

Back to my JAA IR "90% bollox" study

[Jan Olieslagers]

OK, I'll try again:

The basic choice is between commercial airports with full amenities - where things get to be expensive - and private fields or strips with limited services. If you go to a commercial airport (whether by planning before or for lack of options whilst airborne) and are NOT ripped off, you were just lucky.

Not that I've any experience in this field, I'm just trying to summarise what I read here.

One of the good things about a forum like this is the opportunity to share information about level of service available at what a/d at what cost. We can't have too many postings with this kind of practical information, the more so that everything is on change permanently.

[IO540]

Depends on what you mean by "ripped off".

To me it implies a lack of transparency of charges.

If the charges are published, that's OK. You can fly to Gatwick EGKK. 24hrs PPR, and about £500, but it's not a problem at all. You can call up Harrods Handling and they will give you the costs, so it's not a ripoff

I was at Luton (by car) last year, at a seminar. Two blokes flew in in a PA28, and discovered the £400 handling fee when they got there, and both were very obviously upset. They were probably victims of standard UK PPL training (zero operational knowledge) but they should have checked before flying.

Same with most cases of handling agents. They are normally far better run businesses than the airport itself which is often run by morons. You can call up the handler and get all the stuff from him. This is why a lot of higher-up GA pilots prefer handling; for the £100-200 you get a decent service (PPR etc all organised and Customs lubricated, etc) and if it is a one-off trip the cost is OK.

If you fly there regularly then you sort out some locally known "system" for avoiding the handler.

It is when you are trying to avoid handlers on a one-off basis that you sometimes get caught. There is a kind of Holy Grail in "tight" GA and it is called "avoiding handling". Every subterfuge is used. "Taxiing to the aeroclub" is a popular one. At Norwich it was either Anglia flight training (or something like that) or a particular hangar which you could just walk through. The locals know all this. In turn, the handlers are fighting their own battles, and some are crooked, and the further south you get from "white christian Europe" they more openly crooked people are, in general

[miroc]

lack of competition

I feel the problem is rather in lack of competition. Even if there are 2 or 3 handling firms at the airport, they can set the prices by mutual agreement. Not legal, but real. To create a fourth company and compete with them does not make economical sense. No real competition is possible.

If there would be a second airport competing with the first one the situation would be different. Both airport managers would pay attention if the handlers at their airport attract or repel the customers. This would set the prices at the level of lowest possible cost + appropriate profit.

But a second airport is not there because there are too many regulations, planning permits, noise abatement...

The market forces are not allowed to work.

I did my night rating in April. Landed in Bratislava (LZIB) in the C172, in the dark, no traffic, deserted airport. Departed an hour later after paying 57€ for landing and 400m ride in a bus. There is mandatory handling and only 1 handling agency. State owned, government run airport of course.

You can track every such anomaly and find the government idiocy at the end.

Miroc