Long walk to passport control at GVA

Any idea why at GVA they make non-Schengen passengers walk about 600m to passport control, especially when they know people have to rush for late trains nearing midnight? It happened to me last night, but also a few months ago. Basically you have to walk the length of the new terminal C so about 1km in all. Last time there were about 500 people in the queue. After the queue, Schengen passport holders have to scan their passports. Took me 4 attempts yesterday.

I guess dropping passengers at a door near passport control is just too easy...

Guess those stands already have an aircraft parked on them when you arrive close to midnight. They can’t be towing aircraft on and off stands to give you a shorter walk.

Well they don’t call some of those airlines low-cost for nothing. Low-quality is my name for them.

I used to work at an airport (not GVA). At certain times of day, there were not enough terminal stands and some aircraft had to go on remote stands. All the airlines had to take turns being on remote, be it Ryanair or Singapore. Didn’t matter how prestigious they were.

My airline was our flag carrier.

A German airline then.

Happens in ZRH as well if that is the last flight for that plane that day, not enough space to dock them all overnight.

Sucks, but then it is my choice to take that flight.

Geneva has two non-schengen areas. Two of the B satellites and the new ‘c’. Non Schengen passengers need to be separated until they clear. The immigration people are split between the two areas.

It is, what it is.

Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

I don't mind walking. In fact, its my favourite form of exercise, especially when flying, avoids DVTs. However, in the 2 particular instances I cited, nearing midnight, the long walk could have meant the difference between getting the last train home or not. I found it pretty stressful warching the minutes tick by. Also, it was clearly a long walk for the more elderly pax.

Anyone can ask for assistance. You don’t need to be ‘handicapped’. The European Regulators intended it that way. The term is PRM or Passengers with reduced mobility. No proof is needed. And in EU/EFTA the service must be provided by the airport, not the airline. This means you get the same level of service if you fly Swiss or if you fly easyJet. And it costs nothing for the individual. All passengers pay in their airport fees.

While passengers have to wait till the end for getting their assistance it is often quicker as PRMs have priority at queues. Not because they are PRMs but because the airport doesn’t want their employees standing in queues when they could be helping other passengers.

Maybe don't book the late flight - what would you have done if it were delayed? Coming in close to midnight a flight will never be allocated a central stand as they will all have been taken already by night stopping aircraft.

In my experience it's not the distance of the walk but the efficiency or not of the customs clearance process. It goes pretty well if you are Schengen passport holder, and further improved with the auto scanning ones recently brought into operation. Schengen lines, if you can't use the automatic ones, can be slow, but by far it's the non-schengen line that's a huge hold up. This line backs up so far it prevents the Schengen people to even reach the beginning of their line. I think the walk is so long so they can use 3/4 of that hallway for the queue of non-schengen.

Of course I would book an earlier flight if I could. Unfortunately there is only one a day and that's it. It should get in at 21h45 but is often delayed because of the knock-on effect during the day. Mine was delayed.

One of my neighbours works for the border force at GVA and knowing my British origins he told me of the headache that Brexit is causing at the airport.

Brits have always made up a significant proportion of passengers at GVA. Indeed you only have to look at the departure board at the airport to see how many flights there are to Blighty.

Prior to Brexit, Brits would be pretty much waved through, but post Brexit, Brits are treated as non-Schengen, non-EU, and each entry and exit into and from the Schengen zone has to be recorded and a stamp placed in the passport.

As a result the entry of Brits through GVA has created a significant increased workload at passport control, obviously without any additional resources being allocated.

As an aside, whilst at GVA its the federal border force which is responsible for passport control, at ZRH it's the Kantonspolizei. Go figure.

Note you see a similar phenomenon, but even worse, at the channel ports for the ferries.

I flew into Milan recently from UK.

There was a special passport queue for Brits (and perhaps others), where you could you use the e-passport gates, and then immediately go to a kiosk to get your passport stamped. I was through in under a minute. If they can do this in Italy, can't see why Swiss airports can't do it.

This is just so terrible, I've had to order a further 10 sessions of therapy