Originally Posted by
MaxFlyer
Non Schengen to Non Schengen transfer is still possible but you have to get an immigration officer to call someone to take you through and the side door and go through security.
My experience last week flying LHR-OSL (SAS) connecting to OSL-BKK (Thai Airways) all on one ticket.
I'm a British passport holder, and was flying with my Thai wife (Thai passport holder).
We went straight to the "side door" but a helper managing the queues for immigration said we needed to queue for immigration and speak to an immigration officer first. Seemed a bit of a waste of time and the queues were huge, and our connection was only 50 mins due to a late inbound flight...
The immigration officer went through a whole list of formalities...
- Does your wife have a transit visa? - No
- "In that case we would strongly recommend you apply for one next time, as if your next flight is cancelled, she cannot enter Norway and she'd be stuck in the airport. The ticket you have booked is very risky".
- I will grant you both a temporary non-Schengen to non-Schengen clearance... but the computer is being slow... 5 mins later, still waiting whilst they held our passports trying to process it.
- It then took 10 mins for someone to open the door after they called someone to let us through.
- A tiny security checkpoint but we were the only 2 passengers let through the door and cleared that security in 1 minute.
- They were calling our names for "final boarding" just as we managed to run to the gate for the Thai Airways flight.
I've transited through hundreds of airports and never seen this nonsense where you have to queue for immigration to stay airside and transfer to another flight. Won't be flying via Oslo again.