Watch Out For APU Fines at Le Bourget

The summer peak is nearly upon us, and so too is the busiest season for BizAv at LFPB/Le Bourget.

Several upcoming events will see an influx of traffic to the airport including the French Open (May 19 – June 8), the Paris Air Show (June 16 – 22) and Paris Fashion Week (June 24 – 29).

While this isn’t a new change, if you’re heading into LFPB it’s a good time to remind yourself of the strict rules for APU usage lest you fall victim to some potentially large fines.

They’re not mucking around either – two groups are involved. The Air Transport Gendarmerie is responsible for monitoring APU usage at the airport and making sure operators follow the rules. If not, a group known (in English) as the Airport Nuisance Authority (ACNUSA) will get involved and issue fines.

In a recent year, ACNUSA imposed 334 fines for non-APU compliance across French airports. Their haul? €6.9 million – that’s an average of more than €20,000 per fine. This has been confirmed as accurate and current by a local handler. Both the operator and PIC can be held liable.

The French AIP (LFPB AD 2.21) has the full rules – but here’s what you need to know…

Know the time limits

Since 2023, the rules at Le Bourget have depended on whether your parking stands have ground facilities or not:

Departing Flights – APU use limited to 10 minutes prior to the EOBT if your stand is equipped with ground air and power, or 45 minutes on stands without these services.

Arriving Flights – APU use limited to 5 minutes after arrival if your stand is equipped with ground air and power, or 20 minutes on stands without these services.

There are limited exemptions to the rules, these include:

Humanitarian and medical flights.
Military aircraft.
Aircraft carrying live animals, perishables, medical or cosmetic goods that require active air flow.
The sake of flight safety (which specifically includes passenger, crew or handler health). For departing aircraft it’s worth noting it can take up to 30 mins to cool the cabin of a larger jet (such as a G650, or Falcon 8X) to comfortable temp when the ambient temp outside is more than 30 deg C (86 deg F).

You can enact limited exemptions for APU use, but make you have a solid case for it.

For BizAv flights, determining whether or not the FBO is “equipped with ground air and power” is a slightly tricky business. One FBO reported the following:

We have some mobile GPUs, but not for every space. That creates two interpretations:

The first one: if we have a mobile GPU available, so it is 5 minutes on arrival and 10 minutes on departure; and if we don’t have it available, it is 20 minutes on arrival and 45 minutes on departure.

The second one: they consider that as we are not able to provide one GPU to each aircraft, we are in the 20 minutes on arrival and 45 minutes on departure category by default.

But as the second way is not an “official” one, it is only a tolerance, that’s why you might get different replies from the different FBOs about how the rules work here.

I need an exemption

This is at the PIC’s discretion, but you need to be able to justify it using one of the conditions above.

To do so, you’ll need to provide your agent with a declaration for the Gendarmerie that you intend to break the APU rules, and most importantly why.

Feedback from local agents

Here’s what handlers at Le Bourget had to say when we reached out to them directly.

“…the airport authorities are very strict with the use of APU’s here. The authorities may fine you for failure to comply – we are able to provide a GPU at the request of the crew…”
“…there are some unexpected and random inspections by the authorities, after which they write a report and impose a fine…”
“…the use of the APUs is randomly controlled by the Gendarmerie here in LFPB. The maximum amount of the fine for APU infractions is 20,000€…”
“…the Captain may only deviate from APU rules for safety reasons. Violation is heavily penalized by the ACNUSA agency, with fines generally exceeding €10,000!…”

Why the fuss anyway?

Two things – noise and pollution.

APU’s are noisy things – a typical one produces 113 decibels, an equivalent noise range to a power saw, jackhammer or even a rock concert. Le Bourget is noise sensitive and located in close proximity to residential areas.

Then there’s the dinosaurs we’re burning – carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other nasties are ejected from our APU exhaust. Reducing runtime helps lower emissions and improves air quality near the field. In fact, here is a surprising statistic – approx. 30% of an airport’s carbon emissions come from aircraft on the ground (with APU use being a significant factor).

This is all in line with global and EU climate goals (such as Fit for 55 or the Paris Agreement). Agree or not, we have to play by the rules – or find ourselves paying a hefty price.

Have a report to share?

Have you been stung or know someone who has? Please share your story with us (as always, our reports are always de-identified). There are several thousand crew out there who will owe you a beer. You can reach us around the clock on news@ops.group.

3 Comments

Neil Patton says:

17 June, 2025 at 9:11 pm

There is a Paris Airport (45-50 mins from the center) that has no noise issues. The only neighbours build jet engines for their livelihood. They also have an all electric GPU for those who don’t want to burn dinosaurs and like calm and quiet on the ramp.
This airport can operate 24/7 inbound and outbound, with no slots and no noise restrictions…and no fines.
LFPM.
AS yet no customs, despite the obvious necessity in the Paris region for an alternative to Le Bourget.

Raul Berta de Azevedo says:

15 June, 2025 at 2:02 pm

It’s Safety concern issue to put more pressure in the preflight preparation for a Bizav aircraft independently of the weather temperature and climate outside. The cockpit preparation for many acff like a Gulfstream could take more than 30 mins.
I hope that as many as possible we can use our OpsGroup discussion to spread out this Safety concerns and send to the EU authorities our respectable appeal to have exceptions for all General Aviation aircrafts to start APU at least 30 mins before departure time.
We are fully committed to the noise abatement voluntary compliance and also the carbon emissions as a real impact to the environment. So we as PIC or crew members carrying people as much safely as possible just would like to post our Safety concerns that have been raised in our operational response of Flight Safety always.
Respectfully
Raul
F7/8X PIC

Luca Bandini says:

23 May, 2025 at 7:40 am

This APU restrictions are widely spreading across Europe.
Most bizav aircraft do not have a ground cooling port to connect air conditioning which leave in fact the plane only powerable with GPU.
In nothern countries this is a treat in winter as crew will have to stay most likely around an hour in a freezing environment, and it’s even worse in summer in southern countries where the crew have to stay at cooking temperatures inside their jets (not to mention most planes have a maximum cooling temp if not provided with air conditioning which further limit is the amount of time pilots have to do their cockpit preparation).

This is a clear treat to safety in my opinion as what IF after getting airborne a pilot becomes incapacitated due to excessive heat exposure?
Furthermore I believe every country at least in Europe as a set limit of temperatures under which employees are allowed to work, since crew are no different to labour law.. why do we have to accept this in the first place?

Watch Out For APU Fines at Le Bourget