GUWonder

AMS indeed is no longer what it used to be.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/23921025-post366.html

GUWonder

Watch out for legislative/regulatory/administrative changes being presented as a gift for travel; it may be but a Trojan horse. A "gift" like allowing the use of (EU/Schengen country) national ID cards -- as opposed to just passports) for more than just all Schengen travel but also for all intra-EU travel even if it crosses in or out of the Schengen zone.

:D!

Can't EU/EEA/Swiss ID cards already be used instead of passports to travel throughout the EU?

I'm glad that I'm about to be granted British citizenship soon. My first time through passport control in AMS was in 2014 (Australian), but even over a few months I have seen a decline in the attitudes of these Dutch officers.

Recently I got stuck behind some people travelling on Carribean passports with valid Schengen visas, but not of the expected ethnicity of the majority of their country's passport holders. After a while the EU lanes were completely empty but the non-EU lane had not budged; the EU officers decided to chat amongst themselves for 5 minutes until the next EU pax arrived. I won't say how the Carribean passport holders were treated, but there were some nasty comments from the Americans behind me both about the travellers and the processing officer.

Say what you like about the UK, but at least they have multiple lanes for both UK/EU/EEA and All others, and occasionally will even process non-EU pax in the EU lane if it is empty.

GUWonder

What was the perceived ethnicity of the Caribbean passport holders? Do you happen to know the country? I have various ethnic Asian and European friends/family friends/acquaintances who are citizens of Caribbean countries where they are a small minority; and some of the hassles they face at passport control are indeed due to ignorant passport control personnel who are unaware of history and/or contemporary demographic diversity and who are operating based on racist stereotypes. At AMS passport control, the treatment has gotten worse as passport control has ended up in the hands of a younger and a demographically more diverse pool; this is sort of interesting as the decline has become predictable at POEs of OECD countries.

Not for all intra-EU travel; for an example where it is not generally allowed: intra-EU air travel that involves crossing into or out of the Schengen zone to enter the destination EU state.

:D!

They were not directly in front of me, and it was rather noisy but I would guess they were from the Manchuria region of China and the passports looked most like Trinidad and Tobago (but could possibly be from any CARICOM country; this was the first time I have seen actual CARICOM passports rather than just photographs)

Which EU states outside of Schengen don't allow EU/EEA/Swiss citizens to enter (then by extension, transit) with just an ID card? Or do you mean transiting a non-EU/EEA state, e.g. Russia, to return to the EU, in which case Russia can impose whatever requirements it likes without caring what the EU wants?

GUWonder

EU Schengen country citizens can't ordinarily fly from Denmark to the UK without a passport even on the non-stop flights from CPH to LHR.

:D!

Really? But they certainly don't need to show their passport on arrival in the UK.

GUWonder

That is correct. I was mistaken about the passport vs. ID card thing and I'm trying to figure out why.

bankops

Passport or EU ID is sufficient for all EU border crossings, plus Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

Currently, no iD is requested to clear security in most European airports. Just a bp. So TSA-style would surprise me since they have stopped. BRU stopped over 5 years ago and FRA almost as long. LUX only in the last 6 months.

GUWonder

The push in this direction continues:

https://euobserver.com/justice/127519

:D!

Ireland is introducing passport cards; does this leave the UK as the only EU country with no ID card?

I would have supported a UK passport card akin to the US passport card, but not the ID database that the Labour party was trying to build several years ago, which has been scrapped by the current government.

GUWonder

(data) Surrender monkeys, the lot of them:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...aw-by-year-end

The majority have agreed to implement some kind of massive passenger surveillance system in/for the EU too. NSA is happy today, for its spying on you all is going to get easier.

teahan

The implications of a single European PNR is getting very little coverage in the mainstream media. The BBC didn't even directly mention it in this related.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31453478

Unfortunately the implications are quite significant, and a single European PNR won't be implemented without related proper passenger ID checks.

GUWonder

All sorts of creative games are being played to try to get this into place by year-end:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/28842...-year-end.html

Since there isn't sufficient opposition from MEPs, it's a done-deal IMO unless the Courts stop it -- which I doubt.

Absent more extensive systemic ID checking of passengers prior to getting airside and/or clear Schengen passport control, the EU PNR system is noted to be readily gamed.

I'm opposed to implementation of the EU PNR system, as it is a system which is designed to be married with more, slower ID checks and hitting passengers with name-driven blacklist-treatment. This will provide the EU with an even worse flashback version of the the TSA-style "security" ID-based nonsense that has hit the US since the fall of 2001.

GUWonder

The French interior minister is headed to Denmark and will address what happened in Copenhagen today; and you can bet that the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish governments, which were an easy sell to get on board the EU PNR mass surveillance system, are now easily sold on it too.