The General Aviation (Persons on Board, Flight Information and Civil Penalties) Regulations 2024
Frequently Asked Questions for Airfield Owners and Operators
Q. Do the 2024 regulations require information about domestic flights?
No. The requirement to provide information online about the flight and persons on board applies to international flights only. This includes flights between the UK and locations within the Common Travel Area. Information about the flight and persons on board is not required for domestic flights, including flights between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Q. Are passenger and crew member’s middle names required to be provided?
Yes. An individual’s full name must be provided. This includes first name, middle names (their given names) and surname (their family name).
Some operators may scan travel documents. In these circumstances the name displayed in the Machine-Readable Zone (MRZ) will be accepted.
Where an individual’s full name is manually entered on the GAR, pilots’ owners and operators must provide the full name as displayed on the VIZ (Visualisation Zone) on the bio-data page of their passport.
Q. Can the flight depart at the time submitted when there are last minute bookings or changes less than two hours before the expected time of departure?
No. Information about the flight and persons on board must be submitted no earlier than 48 hours and no later than 2 hours prior to the expected time of departure. In the event of any last-minute bookings and additional persons onboard the information about the persons onboard must be provided no later than 2 hours prior to the expected time of departure.
Q. Do I need to amend the information about the flight and persons on board if I depart earlier but on the same day?
Early departure is possible but only where the required information has been provided no later than 2 hours prior to expected time of departure. Providing you have complied with the two-hour requirement, and you are departing on the same calendar day, the captain can depart earlier than planned.
Q. In the event of a crew change, aircraft change or change to arriving/departing aerodrome, would the captain be required to delay their departure time?
Yes. In the event of any additional crew, aircraft change or change to arriving/departing aerodrome the information about the flight and persons on board must be amended – and provided no later than 2 hours before departure.
Q. If the information about the flight and persons on board has been submitted but a discrepancy is identified and an amendment needs to be made, does the captain have to delay the flight by 2 hours?
Yes, the information provided must be accurate. Where there is a discrepancy identified less than two-hours prior to expected time of departure, the information must be amended, and the captain must delay the flight by two hours to comply with the requirements of the regulations.
Q. If a passenger or crew member is no longer travelling on the flight, is a new or amended submission required?
No. When an individual is no longer travelling, there is no requirement to amend of create a new submission.
Q. Are there exceptions to the regulations for emergency medical flights?
Border Force takes a pragmatic approach to emergency medical flights where compliance with the two-hour window isn’t always possible. There may also be occasions where the information about an individual onboard, for example an accident victim, is not known in advance of the flight departing.
In any emergency where life is at risk, and a flight needs to operate with less than two hours’ notice or without the information about the individual on board, Border Force will not penalise non-compliance with the regulations.
Q. If an individual on board is a dual national, can both documents be provided on the GAR?
Yes. Where an individual has dual nationality, both passports can be included on the GAR submission.
Q. If an individual has multiple valid passports, can these be provided on the GAR?
Yes. Where an individual has more than one active passport, these can be included on the GAR submission.
Q. What if the sGAR service and/or approved third-party applications are all unavailable due to planned maintenance or unplanned technical issues?
If you need to submit a GAR during this period, you must download and complete a GAR form found on gov.uk – Providing information about international general aviation flights.
The GAR forms must be submitted directly to the National Co-Ordination Unit (NCU) at ncu@hmrc.gov.uk GAR forms must only be submitted to this email address during the period sGAR and approved third-party applications are unavailable.
If there is a maintenance outage specific for any third-party applications, the free government Submit a General Aviation Report (SGAR) service can be used – Providing information about international general aviation flights.
Alternatively other approved third-party applications listed on gov.uk can be used a but may incur a service charge.
In all circumstances GARs must be submitted from 48 hours and no later than 2 hours prior to the aircraft’s expected time of departure.
Q What if given name and/or surname has special characters – should these be added?
No. Special characters like hyphens, apostrophes, national characters (e.g. umlauts) should not be included in your name fields as this will cause your GAR to be rejected a. Only Latin-Alphabet values e.g. A-Z will be accepted.
Special characters further add to the designated given name and surname character value so should not be included.
Q. What if an individual’s name exceeds the 35-characters on sGAR?
If the name exceeds 35-characters, add the name characters until the maximum value is reached.
On the customs declarations page on sGAR in the field labelled ‘Please add any further information about arrival for Border Force consideration’, add your full name – all given names and surname with a comment that surname exceeded 35-character limit.
Please do not include any special characters e.g. hyphens, apostrophes.
Q. What do I do in circumstances where an individual has one given name but does not have a surname or it is not clear if the one name is given name or surname?
If a passenger or crew member does not have a surname, please type UNKNOWN in full in the given name field on the GAR and add name into surname field.