Schengen Border Controls and Access to the FCT
 

We have accessed the FCT terminal while connecting in FRA twice this year. I am a US citizen and my wife is a Serbian citizen with a US green card. Both times we passed immigration, left the main terminal and walked to the FCT. We plan on doing the same next month when we transit through FRA, but with stricter border controls imposed due to the refugee crisis, will this affect us trying to access the FCT? I don't think it would for me, but for my wife; even with a green card?

Schengen Border Controls and Access to the FCT
 

Discussed in other threads... Highly doubt it would cause any problems - why would it?

Absolutely no need to worry, I enter the EU at least 10 times a year (most recently a week ago) with a Serbian passport and never encounter any difficulties.

OP was referring to recent hardening of border controls (as of Monday this week), so your experience is irrelevant. However, AFAIK, the hardening was for road borders and at this stage only for borders between Austria and Germany only.

So, for the OP - you should not see any changes at FRA airport and everything should be as used to be.

I got the impression that he was specifically worried about the passport being Serbian. Either way, it doesn't matter, no problems should be expected.

My VIE-DUS flight on Monday arrived in DUS in NON-Schengen and border control was present.

While the FCT use by the OP and OP's wife is highly unlikely to be disrupted by the current Schengen controls situation, the increased border checks are not limited to just surface transport crossings nor are they limited to just Austria-Germany trips. Flights into Germany from Croatia and Serbia have been getting more of an official "reception" at German airports too. And flights from VIE and even AMS have been getting more of a "reception".

The transit allowance and/or admissibility allowance of Serbian citizens into Germany for US-bound travels remains basically under the same conditions today as at this point last year.

Maybe it will take a few minutes longer than usual, but since you are both entering Schengen legally why would it even matter?

WOW, that's significantly more than officially announced...

thank you everyone for the input. Will keep an eye on any changes.

If unsure, just use FCL B instead.

Any information on PRG, GVA. I have a FRA-PRG-FRA ; FRA-GVA-FRA and a FRA-LHR in the next two weeks! Should I expect border checks on PRG and GVA too, and maybe build in longer connection times?

That is the backup plan, but the FCT is just on another level in terms of service, experience. After going there the first time when I is was coming back to the States from Europe, I rerouted my second trans-atlantic trip last month just to use it again.

I don't understand the different level of service you talk about. The only thing you don't get in the FCL vs FCT is a PA to come and find you when it's time to leave for your flight. Also if you are connecting to a Schengen destination (which does not apply to the OP and his wife) or to a non-Schengen flight departing from a B gate, you will not be driven to your flight. On one occasion when I visited both the FCL B and FCT on the same day (a very long layover) I found the staff in the FCL B more attentive than in the FCT.

I don't know at this point (and I'll make an effort to find out from sources in the relevant enforcement authorities and from others too). That said, there is only so much staff and attention span available for checking at airports, especially when the current primary refugee/migrant flow concerns are still more about surface crossings than air travel crossings and those aren't (at least yet) major flow channels. Personally, I wouldn't pad in more than perhaps 5 extra minutes on the kind of itineraries you've mentioned (assuming its for air travel), and even that I wouldn't do if it cost me a penny more.

If I find out anything that would make me change my own plans in this regard, I'll try to make sure to update this thread.