I've taken the bus from the railway station at Basel and where the road joins, it is signposted for the airport. Seems a doddle - or at least the bus driver didn't get lost... :-D
Yes, the airport is well-signed. If you are coming from Zurich, you should follow signs to Mulhouse / Euroairport.
If you are just dropping someone off or picking them up, it's easiest to go to the Swiss side of the airport. To do this, simply follow signs to Euroairport -- it's the last exit before the French border.
However, if you're travelling and need to park your car for a few days, it's much cheaper to leave your car on the French side of the airport. In this case, ignore the airport signs before the border and continue to follow the signs towards Mulhouse. Cross the French border and then follow the signs to the airport. From memory, it's the second exit after you cross the French border.
Parking on the French side of the airport is about 40% cheaper than the Swiss side. You can access all parts of the airport once you are inside, so it makes no difference which side you enter from.
Not quite true Village Idiot, you will find joint access only once you've gone through passport and security control, only the airside part of the terminal is equally accessible.
When you arrive at BSL you have to know which side you want to clear, either through France or Switzerland. It's a long way around if your visitors mess up and you're waiting on the other side.
It's actually the opposite, at least on departure. You can cross between the French side and the Swiss side on the main concourse, in front of the Petit Casino.
Airside, there are two distinct parts of the airport -- the main Europort/Basel side which serves about 90% of the destinations, and the Mulhouse side, which serves some French domestic destinations. Irritatingly, once airside, you can't connect between these two, as I discovered on an early morning flight to Orly (leaves from Mulhouse side) where I wanted to use the main lounge (located on the Basel side).
As VI clearly said, it's very straightforward, you cannot get lost. The trickiest part I would say is: when coming from Zürich/Bern/Luzern is to keep right after "BS Badischer Bahnhof" Abfahrt while inside Schwarzwald Tunnel as you are going to follow A3 Mulhouse (F) - EuroAirport ramp at Abzweigung BS Wiese-Kleinhüningen. Otherwise you might end up in Germany...
Not true. Your guests can either (unofficially) walk back through the customs area and exit the correct one (30 seconds) else officially go upstairs, walk across, and come downstairs again (2 minutes).
Not IME it's not. Given that you're already on the motorway, you'll be at the Blotzheim exit about three minutes after the one you mention, thence straight into the airport. Staying in CH means you need to negotiate a couple of junctions, with possible traffic, and then the single-carriageway road to the Swiss side of the Airport. Not always a lot in it, but a couple of minutes minimum, and a bit more if there's traffic from St. Louis round the casino area.
As others have said, this is no longer the case. It was always possible to cross between the two groundside within the terminal, albeit past a customs inspection point, but that was never used for about the last five years; but a year or so back they removed that completely, so you can just go straight through in either direction on the Departure level (and for some reason FR-CH only in the arrival level).
What he said. At the departure level you can freely walk between the French and Swiss side. At the arrival level you can't - so as he said, just go up one level on the escalator, then walk across and down the other escalator. I do this whever I am waiting for people, just to have a look at the French bookshop.
Sorry, but I cannot totally agree with you. You forgot the stop-and-go traffic , especially during rush hours just before the St-Louis Autoroute border crossing and A35 (lots of French frontaliers' cars).
Don't exaggerate either . Only one junction and 3 or so roundabouts vs. one border crossing and 2 roundabouts for French section. Personally to be on the safer side, I prefer to use the rarely congested Zollfreistrasse (route douanière) than A35.
I'll be dropping my husband and son off at the Basel airport tomorrow (late morning) and will have to drive myself home, alone, for the first time from there. I'm a little nervous about it . I looked up directions from Google Maps and am wondering if anyone can possibly tell me why this stretch of the route is in red ? (And yes, I know I should use GPS on my phone but I hate doing that).
Google Maps shows real time traffic flow and red means it's busy. Makes sense for a Friday afternoon, right? The little bit before it is orange which means it's also busy but not as busy as the red stretch.
Look at the same route at, say, 10.30 tonight and you'll see the difference.
Thanks! lol. I'm not sure I'd even seen or noticed that before, on Google maps, with the red meaning traffic congestion.
Is it true that you can enter Basel airport with or without having to cross the French border? My hubby will be driving there, so I'm not sure which route his GPS will take him. I only hope that my printed route back home will still be applicable.
(I hate driving anywhere in a foreign country -- even Switzerland -- that I've never driven before ).
Well if you follow the main route from Basel then although you are physically in (or surrounded by) France, the road is fenced off, officially a "Zollfreistrasse" and only feeds the Swiss side of the airport. So no customs, border etc.
Not everyone has a car w/sat nav, or bluetooth for that matter - with a printed set of directions one can read beforehand and if one really gets lost, stop and reorientate. If one doesn’t have sat nav, is on a long trip (or isn’t but phone goes dead, no adaptor for the lighter that hasn’t disappeared under a seat )
I love paper maps, use one whenever in a new city, certainly when hiking, and like to look at country maps etc. to get a whole perspective
To be honest, my phone does have GPS capabilities, but I've never used it before ( ) and was nervous about trying to use it for the first time tomorrow when I'm driving alone. (My hubby is usually the one doing the driving and using his GPS).
So I figured that it was a good idea to at least study the route a bit (via Google maps) and to print out the directions and take it with me, even if I do also end up trying to use GPS on my phone (which I probably won't).
I know... I'm like technologically stuck in the Stone Ages.
I'm still confused about crossing the border or not. When I look at the airport on Google maps, it looks like the airport is still quite a bit away from the French/Swiss border and that it's over the border rather than before it.