Originally Posted by
Xandrios
It's an odd thing. Must say that out of hundreds of ATH departures I have never seen something like this happen. I've seen single people being questioned for their paperwork, but like this - never. These people, having no financial means, would have purchased a flight just to 'try' getting through the checks by use of pure luck? That sounds like not a great investment.
Also, they would require 'double' luck because more often than not there is an ID check upon arrival at AMS. And this is one of those checks were racial profiling is heavily used - looking Dutch, being one of the first off the aircraft (ie flying business) they always just wave me through without even looking at my passport. Others obviously not looking western European (or typically Greek I guess), not so much.
ATH-AMS was a common route for me pre-Covid and there are days you don't just need 'double luck', but triple since ATH will check your passport if you're entering the informal zone where the AMS flight was departing from (they'll close off the area so your only way in is getting your passport checked before even getting to the gate). There are indeed also times the Marechaussee weren't checking IDs at the end of the AMS aerobridge, but it is rare. I'm not sure about the racial profiling but they usually just take only an extra second checking the holographic security features of my passport and wave me through.
Got some grief at ATH as a Singapore passport holder - once, a lady was surprised to see I don't have a Schengen visa (we don't need one), and asked her supervisor round. Got cleared obviously, but I found it somewhat amusing given that my passport's full of Schengen stamps (and no sticker visas) which should have indicated to her I really don't need one, and that the same person checking passports at the gate didn't even bother looking since she clearly spent some time prior ascertaining that I had to right to fly to AMS.
