FAQ

What’s the permit to travel thing all about?

Well there’s been talk of this for over 2 years. It is connected with the UK introducing a ETA (electronic travel authorisation) system. This has to be rolled out to any carrier or ‘aggregator’ who handles information for Border crossing from business jets to channel tunnel to small boats to cruise liners. So the GAR system had to be overhauled as well. In the new system you will submit your crew and pax details(passports etc). It is important that all data is filled in. Our apps check you along the way and frankly it is difficult to make a mistake. If you are carrying a person with a non UK or IRL passport it will flag up that they need an ETA if theyb didnt already know. When you submit a GAR it first checks these persons details and reports back . You may receive a message saying ‘do not board’ – entirely up to you if you leave it at that and complete the journey but there is a large fine probably awaiting you. You may otherwise receive messages of which the 2 most important are ‘no record of an ETA’ or ‘information pending’ You might get the latter if your pax has only just applied. If you get the ‘no information message things could still be OK because there’s still quite a number of non UK passport holders who have long term paper visas or other ‘resident’ qualifications. The system just wants the4 ‘responsible person’ (the commander or PiC to make these checks. A telephone number is given in the app for the use of the PiC only in the case of doubt.

Note that the evaluation of the ETA status only takes place on the submission of the GAR (home office logic not mine) so if you decide to ‘bounce’ said dubious pax you must cancel that gar and resubmit.

Whats happened to Onlinegar.com

OnlineGar.com has had a good innings but the model of provision (web service and cloud storage) was becoming quite costly while at the same time fewer pilots were prepared to pay for the service. In the end the huge amount of work needed to rebuild for ‘permit to travel’ was just too much. I had quite a lot of sunk code in mobile apps and the app approach bypassed the cost of offering every user their personal server space. In the end it turned out to be mammoth but we are now receiving our authorisation and the launch of myGar.net is upon us. OnlineGar.com will cease to be able to send GARs to UKBF from 0800 23 Feb 2026 . MyGar.net apps will be available as soon as possible after. the Android app will be on this website from then. the Apple and Microsoft windows apps will appear in their stores after their approval process

I cant seem to send to UKBF

The Apps require you to register as a member on this site first. Then put in your username(usually your email) and the password you have chosen into the settings page of the app. After this the ability to send to UKBF is established. Without a membership you can still create ‘pdf’ declarations for CTA, France, Belgium.

Do I have to log on at the website all the time

No not at all – you simply register as a member on the website myGar.net once and use those credentials in the app. The App does not then require you to log in every time and certainly none of this two or three stage authorisations with message to your phone !!!

Where are all my previous GAR’s from OnlineGAR

As explained on the OnlineGAR closure notice on that site the technical challenge of exporting all persons data is frankly beyond one person. Of course it can be done but not for free by one individual so sorry – that’s life but you’d be surprised how many people seem to think their entitled in this way.

The apps however work in an similar way – you can save your aircraft and crew. These are saved in contacts so you probably have much data there already. After a while you will build up a similar library and be able to copy previous forms in seconds

Whats all this about using Dropbox

Well you can use iCloud, Google Drive or One Drive. You just need to enter your credentials on the settings screen. Then after returning to the main menu you will be taken to a browser and for example the Dropbox site where you will be asked to authorise Manifest6 or 6a to use your dropbox (et altera) account Google and onedrive work in a similar way icloud is more integrated, but the process is obvious.

What that then gives you is the equivalent of OnlineGar personal cloud service. You can compose your declarations on say a desktop – it synchs automatically with your own selected cloud service and when you ar eon the road you can see your declarations and other data on say a mobile or tablet

Why do I have to enter my passport number twice

You don’t – there is a field for short passport number and another OPTIONAL one for long passport number – If you choose to fill in the long passport number (e.g. by saving it somewhere and cutting and pasting) then the app will automatically fill in 5 other fields for you – it is simply a convenience.

Why cant I put in a ’round trip’

The new UKBF permit to travel system introduced effectively a duplication of process we have to deal with. The original Central Business Portal would only accept a one way trip and the Permit to travel system is the same. OnlineGar made it look like your could enter a ’round trip’ but in fact it was sending two GAR’s With the new permit system the problems of that multiply. I agree it would be nice to have and in time if the myGar apps are taken up it may be possible to do the same but right now resources prevent it. There is however a quick and easy way of taking a gar reversing it and submitting

why cant I put in a gar more than 48 hours in advance

This has been a complaint for quite some time and applies as well tto sGar. It is simply that the UKBF systems will not accept a submission. It is quite rigid . Our apps though will tell you and save the GAR for submission in the right time frame to avoid errors. You cannot ‘submit’ a gar earlier and have it ‘get lost’ We have been working on an automatic ‘send’ facility when withing the 48 hour limit bit this requires a lot of careful programming of ‘send notices’ so though there are warnings about 48 hours the auto send facility is pending

If I travel from NI then surely this is outbound from the UK?

The Common Travel Area rules are complex and contradictory. If you travel from NI to another part of Great Britain you have to notify police (not Border Force) therefore you may use the online GAR because it will satisfy all required parties (police at both ends) This is regarded as a CTA to GB journey NOT an outbound UK journey – therefore use the ‘inbound’ journey box.

Is it Secure

Yes – very. We use robust encryption both between the apps and our servers. We do not store ANY of your personal data on our myGar.net server. The only data stored is your membership details and that is only ever used for the restoring of an account for you.

What about coming back from GB to NI

Same rules apply this time it is an outbound journey

Can I edit my GAR journey

Unfortunately the Home Office design precludes editing or amending. The only way allowed is to cancel and resubmit

What about NI to RoI

Whilst this is both a CTA journey and an intra EU journey you should treat it as ‘outbound UK’ . You do not have to notify BF but Police requirements will be satisfied – Use the online GAR, it takes care of who should receive what

What about RoI to NI

In this case, in addition to the requirement to notify PSNI you also need to notify BF. The Online Gar does this for you. Use the ‘inbound UK’ box

Do I still have to notify the Police

If you use the online GAR system you don’t have to worry about which offices or which organisations you have to send it to. It is delivered to the appropriate body automatically and you have discharged your obligation. It has been a practice for some local BF and SB officers to demand to receive a copy. This practice is to be stopped – please report any incidents when they are associated with an online GAR submission

Are the times in the app local or zulu

You can put in a local or a UTC time – the Apps will adjust and create the form correctly. Probably best to use local times say when travelling from France to UK. The apps will also correct for different DST and timezones so you dont have to be rigid about using UTC

I put in my departure and arrival times and the review of the GAR got the times wrong

No it didn’t. There is no facility to enter an arrival time. You must enter ETE (estimated time enroute) The GAR has been changed to conform to the practice on the Flight Plan. You enter the departure time and then enter the ETE estimated time enroute. It calculates the arrival time. So if you mistook the ETE field for arrival time and entered a departure of 09:00 then an arrival time of 10:30 into the ETE field it would have assumed you meant 10:30hours en route and calculated your arrival time as 19:30. But in the new apps that cannot happen and you will be warned if you have not entered an ETE

How do I Cancel a Form?

To cancel a form, select a form from teh GAR list – top menu item on first page – create review. You will see the form its date and GAR receipt. Make sure its the one you want and click. On the popup menu select cancel