PIREPs by Chris

This airfield is permanently closed, sadly. It used to be great.

Very friendly. Restaurant was closed however on a Saturday with beautiful weather. Pretty short Runway. There’s tree fairly close to the 04 threshold. Landing fee EUR 16 for a DA40.

Friendly airfield, at least Jet and Avgas. 2 landings, overnight parking, and customs in and out from Switzerland EUR 35 for a DA40.

Restaurant at the airfield. RNAV to Rwy 27 available.

Only negative is that customs needs 3h notice

Good, busiest GA airfield in Switzerland. Tight circuit, non standard, absolutely needs briefing upfront. You enter an overhead circuit at 2500 ft, then enter the downwind north of the field for the correct runway. Watch for the landing T from overhead. Watch out for gliders south of the field and don't cross the runway axis. Avgas, jet, mogas available. If you don‘t have luggage a walk to the train station of Lupfig is possible. Otherwise, a taxi or Uber can take you to Brugg station. No rental cars or direct buses. But, since the airfield is busy, it‘s worth to ask pilots for a lift. Good restaurant at the airfield, with play area for kids that is popular with locals. Customs available, intra-Schengen and without merchandise only. PPR 2h on arrival, 1h on departure. As of Sept 4, 2025, the customs online notice can be activated online and a phone call is no longer required. Webpage: www.birrfeld.ch VFR only. If you depart for a Z flightplan, call Zurich on 044 801 13 60 on the ground about 10 minutes or so before departure, for squawk, initial VFR directions and departure frequency. Expect a CTOT if the pickup point is in or near the Zurich airspace.

PPR and handling mandatory.

First, be aware of the fact that you have to manually push/pull your aircraft into a parking position from the GA stop field. It's not far, but it's helpful if you are at least two.

I used South Europe Ground Services, which seems to be what used to be Iberia handling. eascicops@southeu.com . Following the guidelines from the Spanish Aeroclub, I asked for "Servicio de acompañamiento en plataforma". They confirmed quite quickly but did never acknowledge my message regarding the departure.

When we arrived, nobody actually bothered to turn up, so we just walked out of the airport. (didn't need customs). Maybe because of that, on departure, I was charged a grand total of EUR 8.87 for the handling (DA40). Needless to say, I didn't inquire any further on hearing the price and left.

Be sure to have your handlers phone number so that you can call them to pick you up in the terminal. Also, ensure you have more time than usual. First, they take you to the airport admin for the parking and landing fees (About EUR 100 for DA40 for landing and 4 nights parking). Then you have to fill in ID numbers at a security stop, Then you have to go pay the handler separately. The South Europe GS office is very close to the GA parking, then they'll drop you off there.

On departure, we had a very nice guy from South Europe helping us, his English was good, and he's a paraglider pilot that had just started to take a few lessons in a Tecnam P92 at a nearby airfield (some UL field but I couldn't find anything on any map ..), so he was definitely GA friendly.

There are rental cars, although for San Sebastian itself, parking seems to be a hassle. We took a bus, line E21, from just outside the terminal for EUR 5.80. The app Citymapper for public transport is very helpful for times (not just there but a great many places worldwide). Tickets can be bought (cash only I think it was) on the bus.

For the return from San Sebastian, we got a transfer set up via booking which was EUR 70 and took about 25 minutes from San Sebastian.