The UK Government recently made changes to how international arrivals and departures are processed.  These changes came into effect on 06 April 2024 with very little notice given to the GA (General Aviation) community. A summary of these changes is provided below for your awareness.

• All flight information (flight date, time, origin, destination, and full manifest) must be submitted to the authorities through the GAR (General Aviation Report) portal at least 2 hours prior to the aircraft taking off. The 2-hour notification period relates to aircraft taking off to arrive in the United Kingdom and aircraft taking off to depart from the United Kingdom. Flight Pro International UK team will continue submitting your flight information through the new GAR portal.

• Any changes to passengers and crew onboard, flight origin, or flight destination are subject to a new GAR submission and a 2-hour wait is required before the aircraft is allowed to depart. This includes departures from abroad to arrive in the United Kingdom and departures from the United Kingdom. Operational changes prior to departure, such as change of destination due to weather, are not exempt from this requirement.

• There is now a penalty scheme in place for non-compliance with the 2-hour notification policy and GAR submission. Penalties are also enforced when incorrect data is provided (e.g. typo in passenger passport, or if a different passport gets presented).

• The penalty scheme consists of 2 warnings, followed by fines of up to £10,000 (per occasion) and civil prosecution of the Captain of the aircraft.

• While our initial understanding was that the penalty scheme would not be strictly applied in practice, there are reports of penalties for non-compliance being strictly enforced at multiple UK airports on arrival and on departure.

Please contact us if you require more information.

Kind regards,

Flight Pro International UK team

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To learn more about FPI’s Compliance, Operations, Regulatory, and other Special Services Network (SSN) teams within FPI, please contact our Operations staff here at Flight Pro International.

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