Originally Posted by
fwang57
I understand that, but that does not answer why many people are waiting in the Swiss line. To avoid being checked by French custom?
Actually at Basel airport, for arrival, the Swiss border control and French border control come out to the same luggage hall, and then people go their separate ways to different exit.
I wasn't aware of that. I am more familiar with GVA which is also a transborder airport and assumed the same thing would work.
Here in GVA, if you are coming from a non-Schengen country you will always go through Swiss immigration and then join arrivals from the Schengen area. There are 2 luggage halls and you decide where you want to go to. Luggage from French flights goes to the French luggage hall first, does a round on the belt and then goes on to the Swiss luggage hall.
All other luggage goes to the Swiss side. The official process if you want to go out on the French side is to go there and ask someone to go and fetch the bag for you. You may be faster going out on the Swiss side, collecting your bags, going up one floor to departures and going through the customs corridor to the French side. Whilst this is usually empty and even if it isn't, it's rare to get stopped, it's probably wise to hang on to a boarding pass to justify going through, as it's supposed to be for passengers only, not for the public.