Seperation of Arriving and Departing Passengers
 

Why do some EU countries quite happily not need to do this? Transiting AMS and GVA this last month the vibe is actually way less stressful.

With appropriate border controls in place, why in the UK do we have 100s of stern looking security types in dayglo yellow opening and closing glass doors as needed to keep us apart from our fellow travellers?

They are allowed to mix freely at T1 and T5 at Heathrow with a photo check preventing undesirables getting onto a domestic flight to bypass the UK Border check. What is the huge danger of allowing the two flows to meet?

Last time I looked ...
 

... GVA was not in an EU country. I believe it is in the Republic and Canton of Geneva (part of Switzerland)

Can someone explain why separating arriving and departing passengers is 'a good thing'? One assumes that both categories of passengers have been through security. Perhaps if a flight is arriving from a 'poor-security' country, this might be necessary but ..

In other words, the security guys at the last airport took away my water, my nail clippers and my golf club - why do I need to experence this trauma one more time? :ugh:

<<GVA was not in an EU country. I believe it is in the Republic and Canton of Geneva (part of Switzerland)>>

I thought Switzerland was in Europe?

Well, they are not members of the EU (European Union).

Switzerland is to all intents and purposes a member of the Schengen (free circulation of criminals, illegal immigrants, trafficked people, Nigerian scammers) area, and of the European Economic Area, but remains outside the EU.

The airport has a French side and a Swiss side.

Either way, Amsterdam is in the EU. I got off an NWA flight a while back and was freely mixing with departing passengers heading to the four corners of the globe. Why are we so controlling in the UK?

If there's a compelling reason, or better a link to the document, can someone post

Ta

Ams has security checks at the gate so you were land side ish, (apart from immigration) from stepping off the air bridge until you went through screening at the gate on the out bound flight. Pax in the gate are seperated from everyone else. Places with central search tend to separate pax and screen transfers before allowing them into departures.

Almost correct. By popular vote the citizens of Switzerland declined to join the European Economic Area. Switzerland's relationship with the EU depends on numerous 'bilateral accords' but this does not include the automatic adoption of EU Regulations and Directives into Swiss law - everything must be approved by the Swiss Parliament first - and in many cases by a majority vote of the population and the 26 cantons.

Can't understand why more power isn't devolved to the people in Europe - the Swiss system works.

People - can we keep to the original subject, namely the separation of arriving and departing passengers at airports please ?

If you want a debate on the relationship between Swizterland the EU, JetBlast is the place for it

I stand corrected ..... they are not EEA but ...... while Switzerland is not in the EEA, Swiss nationals have the same rights as EEA nationals.

The separation or not of inbound/outbound passengers is determined by the need to separate flows of people from different areas, and the above discussions are therefore relevant.

Personally I don't think a countries EU/EEA membership is an issue here. Switzerland has signed and implemented the Shengen agreement. This is the only treaty which is relevant where the movement of people within Europe is concerned. Flights to and from other Shengen countries are treated as domestic trips for immigration purposes. AMS has seperate Shengen and non Shengen areas. You have to pass through immigration to get from one area to the other but arriving and departing passenges are still allowed to mix freely within them. Further afield, SIN also allows arriving/departing pax to mix freely without any problems.

As long as passengers have to pass through immigration to leave an airport or go through security to board another flight I can't think of any logical reason why they shouldn't be allowed to mix. Maybe the answer is as simple as crowd managment? Or maybe it's a security consideration (I would consider this to be illogical, but then lots of security considerations/procedures are...).

Did anyone transit through DUB pre 2008ish? Apparently they used to allow arriving and departing passengers mix freely but then they felt the need to spend a considerable amount of time and money seperating them. The answer to this question might lie in the reasons given for these works.

At Singapore Changi airport, arriving and departing passengers happily mingle.


It was a bit disconcerting the first time I saw it, but it works well ... especially considering that Changi is such a transit airport.

Bangkok & KL the same

Thanks for all that guys. I think the rule seems to be that airports with central search don't allow it, airports with gate search are happy to do so. This would prevent passengers boarding at "lax security" airfields gaining access to high profile airports and airlines without adequate security.

Schengen Agreement.
 

My understanding of the agreement is EU countries signed up to it except the UK- Ireland and possibly some Scandinavian countries. Switzerland is not a member of the EU.
The agreement allows for free passage across borders within Europe,which is why passengers can mix at some airports,but not in the UK etc.

The whole thing is long winded to read, but just google it.
Jubilee

Jubilee.

You are right about Schengen (except that it does apply in all three Scandinavian countries, Iceland, Switzerland and the rest of the EU except GB/IE)

However I don't think this explains the non-mixing of passengers. Take T5 at Heathrow as an example. A passenger in transit through T5 is separated from departing passengers until such time as s/he has cleared security. S/he is then free to mingle with other departing passengers and has not cleared UK immigration.

However I think a passenger arriving at T5 off a domestic flight doesn't get security screened again.

It would seem that the UK doesn't trust other countries security (even though some are more rigid). It doesn't want to take the risk of some black-hats beating the system - although IMHO it would be very easy to separate only flights from countries with poor security, if there are any.

Switzerland applies EU aviation regs
 

Although not an EU Member State, Switzerland is a member of the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA) and as such applies all applicable EU Regulations pertaining to aviation - including aviation security. As with all EU/ECAA states these rules are a minimum standard and can be supplemented as determined necessary at national level by 'more stringent measures' that go above and beyond EU regs.

Swiss-EU bilateral agreement
 

And on a BIGGER scale so does BHD:}

The idea behind segregation of arrivals and departures is twofold. One of or both apply at all airports.
1) So that arriving passengers (potentially from airports with less stringent security) cannot hand prohibited items to departing passengers.
2)So Passengers cannot exchange documentation to let people enter/depart the country who shouldn't.

To tackle this, security can be done in a few ways- total segregation of the two flows through the whole journey. T5 does this with departing passengers passed through security early in the journey (but allows international and domestic departing to mix due to the photo process).
Many EU airports ie Madrid, Barcelona, and indeed outside EU, Singapore operate a different system. They do allow departures and arrivals to mix but security screening is done at the gate, so if an arriving passenger hands something to a departing passenger, it will be picked up at the gate.

There is an argument that it is a little egotistic for the UK to assume that all other countries security is worse than ours, which is why arrival passengers aren't "trusted" to not have illicit items (not just talking illegal, but lighters, knives etc). Recently there is a movement around the patch that says there are a number of EU countries whose security can be "trusted" and for whom therefore, such segregation would not be needed. It is being looked at for how to improve transfers by removing the need for transfer screening, but because space it limited in most airports, it would be hard to implement a Domestic and EU process and a separate "other" international process.

Watch this space i guess!!