Will Fly Småland

If you can get documents to prove that you are in Schengen legally I'd be more worried about a "computer says no" check-in situation than random police checks. In the latter case, it's hard to see that you would lose more than a little time explaining the situation and them possibly checking up on your story. Perhaps you could carry a copy of the police report for your lost passport as well?

GUWonder

I have by now had well over a thousand intra-Schengen flights on my US passports, and the odds of my US passports being checked for a visa on intra-Schengen flights is very slim overall even as I no longer have any Schengen visas in any of my passports. The rare exceptions have mostly been on arrival from flights from AMS or a "random" "customs" check when having carry-on luggage only and in the company of persons who appear to be of ethnicities that may be a majority in some countries in Asia or Africa -- these "random" flags usually correlating with the prevalence of racists in the police forces of those EU Schengen countries into which I am arriving.

Hasn't yet given me a major problem.

Even for entering the Schengen zone from the US, Canada and even some parts of Asia, my (US) passport was not checked by passport control in the EU on a substantial chunk of my non-EU-EU Schengen zone travels. That is less frequent than used to be the case, but it still happens to me.

For EU UK/IRL CTA to EU Schengen Zone travel, the airlines frequently check for entry requirements .... at least when dealing with non-OECD country passports.

tsastor

I am frequently checked for passport when boarding the plane, not only at check-in. Not sure they check visas though.

And airlines letting people without valid documents travel are, when caught, required to fly these people back at their cost + probably fined. So yes, they are entitled to deny boarding for this reason.

GUWonder

Passports checked? Frequently for intra-Schengen international travel too. Visas checked for same kind of travel? Very infrequently (even by airlines). [For a large proportion of my international intra-Schengen travel, passports aren't even generally required for travel; and in some cases no ID whatsoever is required for a substantial chunk of passengers engaged in cross-border intra-Schengen travel, even by air.]

Your latter paragraph above doesn't exactly hold up as probable or even necessarily lawful under various arrangements, applicable to intra-Schengen travel amongst a multitude of Schengen countries, EU and otherwise, as long as a passport is used for travel.

B747-437B

The only time I've been subject to a "random" check within the Schengen area was in Kaunas, Lithuania. I was detained and interrogated by Lithuanian immigration even though I was boarding an intra-Schengen flight and should not have been checked at all. The fact that I was on an Indian passport with a Schengen visa issued by the German Embassy in Ghana arrived in from Latvia and traveling to Finland with a Schengen entry stamp from Bratislava had nothing to do with it, nor the fact that I was probably the only brown skinned person in a 200 mile radius!

tsastor

As I said, I was not sure about checking of Visas in intra-Schenghen travel and my assumption is the same as yours. But requiring (in principle) is of course not the same as not checking. Maybe some FT resident EU lawyer can confirm the actual requirements?
Again, I believe you, although I would be happy to know the exact regulations.

GUWonder

They had flagged you before they had even seen your passport, so the details of your passport were probably evident to them only after they had flagged you. I see this happen at ARN, CPH and FCO more often than even in Eastern Europe, but then again I am at those airports more frequently with "brown" associates than say at the likes of Polish or Greek airports.

Fortunately we have a litany of EU legal and government resources available that seem to be able to resolve matters to our favor sooner than later. Not everyone is as fortunate.

B747-437B

Actually, the problem was that the Ryanair check-in girl didn't speak German so didn't understand what the notation "Erwerbstätigkeit nicht gestattetet" on my visa meant, so she called the Lithuanian immigration folks who didn't know it either and had to refer to someone else up the chain. Not that it was any of her business checking the visa in the first place for an intra-Schengen flight, but to be fair there is nothing else to do at Kaunas Airport so this at least gave us a little bit of excitement.

GUWonder

Maybe she wanted to spend time looking at your beautiful eyes for a bit longer.

We had a sort of similar issue at ARN when my Indian-American relatives (on US passports) were going to India with a week stopover in BKK to see relatives resident in Thailand, but language certainly wasn't a good excuse there. Check-in agent was looking for Thai visas in their ordinary US passports and making a stink about no Thai visas and then started on about the lack of Schengen entry and exit stamps or any visas for the Schengen zone when I indicated no visa was required for US citizens on such travel. The airline rep insisted that Indians like them are required to have visas. I said they are US citizens on a US passport and no Thai visa is required of them for such itinerary. The airline rep via a supervisor IIRC managed to get some SNCP or other government authority involved which managed to get someone over to look into it. The passengers had been flagged down by government passport control types even before they had seen the passport, courtesy of an ignorant check-in agent with some kind of ax to grind who flagged them down before the national authorities had even opened the passport. They had plenty of time too, and the business class lounges at ARN aren't really worth much of anything anyway either.

My European-American relatives on US passports out of ARN on the same exact routing were never questioned like this -- before and since then -- by her or anyone else there.

Nosy, ignorant busy-bodies operating on prejudices do tend to produce uncommon results at airports.

I have a story about CPH from last month too, but I'm not going to go into it just yet.

Thinksamuel

When entering Schengen, you should register at the city hall within a week of arriving. Your documents get checked and you receive a residence card (an identity card) which is your legal document to stay in Schengen. Now, probably you did not get that card just yet so you are in a limbo. The visasticker problem is correct: within Europe they only give the residence card, your visum is only to enter Schengen for the first time. Continuing on that: if you travel outside Schengen and come back, you show your residence card (and passport). It does not matter if you have a stocker or not, the residence card is your proof and your passport will not b stamped upon entry.

MHG

You are principly correct ...
But I need to remind that the residence card is cross referenced to the passport.
So, it may cause a problem if the residence card is cross referenced to the lost passport !
Although usually only the residence card is checked on internal Schengen travel having a passport number different from the one on the (newly issued) passport is not a good idea ...

:D!

Which is a good reason to keep photocopies of your passport separately.

GUWonder

Some Schengen residence cards are not cross-referenced to a passport, lost or otherwise.

A lot of US citizens resident in the Schengen zone with residence cards still get their US passports stamped on many, most or even all of their entries to and exits from the Schengen zone even when showing a residence card or resident visa permit sticker (some of which are still out there too).

FMX

I (briefly) experienced this recently. I had already checked in online for an intra-Schengen flight and just needed to drop off a bag, but there was no self-service for that, so I had to queue for the regular check-in. I presented my BP and explained that I'm just dropping off a bag, but the check-in agent still asked for my passport and proceeded to check the visa. She was at, at first, not satisfied that I was allowed to enter the country I was flying to and was not impressed when I said "you do realise there are no border controls between these two countries, right? " After checking something on the computer (Timatic, I guess) she proceeded to check me in without another word.

I understand that airlines are required to fly back passengers who are denied entry, but in this case there was nobody to deny me entry and she knew that. So I don't understand the airline's motivation for checking the visa in the first place.

What really takes this from "silly" to "absurd" is that I had already checked in online, so they could really only refuse to check in my bag. I could have just proceeded straight to the gate without that bag.

On the way back there was self-service check-in and bag drop, so I experienced no more of this silliness. Nobody else looked at my passport at any stage.

seyvo

hello ALL ;

airline companies de facto checks passports for both identity -which is OK- And
immigration status and sometime act as border control agents;

the thing is any member country -official law enforcement -can check the immigration status of persons present within their territory and may act at their discretion of
whether to engage in procedure or not...

can someone here confirm he/she was able to board an intra-schengen flight with
an expired visa / overstay / etcs?.