nas6034

If someone could confirm that the 15-min rapid antigen tests are good for entry? I’m flying Airfrance so would like to confirm. I know it says they are but wanted to get practical feedback. Thank You.

stimpy

That test was fine for check in at the AF counter at JFK. I wasn't asked for anything upon arrival at CDG last week.

nas6034

Exact route I’m flying so thank you.

TalkingPoint

#3 has been answered here and also explicitly answered on diplomatie.gouv.fr

c1223

No offence to everyone, but I’m not posting because I haven’t done appropriate searches, but there two things here:

1) anecdotal evidence is appreciated

2) I obviously haven’t found what I’m looking for. So posting “it’s been answered somewhere on this website” is clearly ridiculously unhelpful and doesn’t help anyone else who might find the post. So rather than being on your high horse and saying it’s somewhere, just post a link if you know. Not exactly rocket science.

Scott Hudson

I just want to check other people's understanding of the current rules:

I am currently in Sri Lanka and have been since the 12th December, last time I was in the UK was the 10th December. Flying back through CDG arriving on the 28th at 20:15 and leaving for LHR on the first flight on the 29th.

Currently I believe I have a compelling reason to travel CDG to LHR on 29th so OK with that, but what's people's thoughts on being allowed entry to France on the evening of the 28th coming from CMB? I have an overnight hotel room booked but would obviously have to enter France.

Conflicting information seems to be on the 14 or 30 days previous countries part.

I could interline the baggage in CMB and just stay airside overnight I think between T2a and T2c, yotel not an option as that is T2e.

Appreciate people's thoughts on this as not sure if the UK passport will override everything at immigration even though I will have been over 14 days outside the UK...

orbitmic

Sorry I don't mean to sound mean, I know it can be confusing, so to be very clear:

2) as long as you are leaving France to return to the place where you reside (regardless of nationality) it is a compelling reason. So if you are flying to the UK because you live there or transiting there to wherever you live you meet the criteria (first box on the form). If you are a UK national residing, say, in Spain, but you want to go to the UK to spend Christmas with your grandmother, you are not and should in theory be refused travel though no idea if it will happen;

3) your friend is covered by the transit rule - they will have not really entered the UK, they will have just transited staying in international zone. The phrasing is ambiguous, because the way it is done it can cover both UK airport transit and French airport transit, but for all practical purposes, it seems to apply potentially to both. The main issue is that BA won't know that - your friends will have issues filling pre-check in forms online for BA because BA will likely want to know that your friends have a compelling reason to travel "from the UK to France" and they won't. This can mean that they won't be able to check in online and will need to plan plenty of time to spend at the transit desk and hopefully convincing the agents there that they are eligible to travel, which should be agreed but as always, when human checks are involved, implies some level of risk. Presumably your friends are arriving either on AA or on VS, it might be worth trying to see if changing the booking to include all the way to NCE would mean a big price difference, if yes, it might be worth them contacting BA beforehand to explain the situation. Upthread, another poster links to a thread he/she started in the BA forum on "how to convince BA that I am transiting" or words to that effect. The situation is different on the face of it (it is about convince them that CDG - rather than LHR - is a point of transit, but the principle is the same: how best to show to an airline that what "looks" like like a point to point itinerary is in fact part of a "home cooked" indirect itinerary so your friends might find that discussion helpful.

Obviously, your friends should carry proof of itinerary/BPs at each point in the process to demonstrate that they are really only transiting from the US as simply as possible.

Hope it helps.

orbitmic

The UK passport will not override anything, but it will attract more attention/potential questions. Personally, I would guess that what you want to do will likely be allowed when you show your BP from Sri Lanka and explain you've been there for over 2 weeks as I think that in the French case, the idea is more to check for people trying to flout the rules through transit point (of which CMB hardly is one between the UK and France!) rather than a "red list country in the past xx days" rules as in the UK. That said, I don't think anyone can offer a 100% guarantee, so maybe make sure that your hotel booking is refundable/not prepaid in case the border agent is particularly strict?

EsherFlyer

Hopefully you can see that people were trying to be helpful and saying "our best insight is in the posts above in this thread" (although of course any previous outcome is subject to vagaries of individual airline / police staff). It'd be great if you can update that insight if you try anything that hasn't been reported on.

orbitmic

indeed. Also, as a general piece of advice to everyone, be they newbie or experienced, none of us can be in other people’s minds, so the more specific your questions and what part of a situation is worrying you, the better everyone on the forum will be able to help you.

i suspect that quite a few of the cases where a poster feels that their question has not been answered despite checking the thread and others believe that it has may come from that sort of misunderstanding, as do many cases of people feeling that the answer they received was not relevant/what they were looking for.

NPZ

Its an extra stressful time with Covid + Omicron x Travel + Holidays = Insanity.

I still don't know all the inns and outs of my upcoming trip in 2 days. I learn more and more each and every hour it seems and there are so many opinions that differ amongst people on this board and other places. Heck the airlines give different answers than some people on here. So... yea it would be amazing if everyone could just be 20% kinder and more understanding right now, more than ever!

behuman

A good wish for 2022. The harshness will alienate people from FT and it will be a loss for us all.

c1223

Thanks, much appreciated. You explanation about the phrasing is interesting and I think something that I should hopefully be beneficial for my friend. The issue I see, as you've mentioned, is that the French's travel rules are specifically about flying from the United Kingdom, which does muddy the water slightly. Interestingly, a call to the French consulate didn't help, because they seemed to suggest it was up to the airline's interpretation of the rules...

Unfortunatley its VS to BA, so seperate PNRs don't help. Obviously when this was all booked many months ago, it wasn't an issue. They've got 3.5hrs, so I'm hoping that their Virgin flight doesn't get delayed too much (although there is a later NCE flight if that did happen).

orbitmic

Just remember that ultimately, even if in all likelihood, you are more likely to get "correct" and thoughtful answers on FT than from airlines (not just on covid, but there are countless occasions when people have been given mistaken answered by airline staff about the airline's own policy), the rapport de force here is that ultimately, it is an airline automated system and an individual check in staff (from the airline or more often than not subcontracted) and their supervisor who will control your fate and that of your trip.

Most countries have not gone the necessary workforce to fully implement their own covid restrictions, so they end up deputising to airlines to enforce the rules they make, and airlines are understandably afraid of letting in people they should not whilst dealing with their own problems anyway. So if you get a formal answer from the airline that you will fly, even if it is "wrong" you might just stick to it unless you are planning to put great effort in arguing your case with an uncertain outcome.

orbitmic

But the point is that it is not - the rules are intended to restrict unnecessary travel from the UK to France, regardless of itinerary (they don't care if you fly or drive, nonstop or via elsewhere) and not to restrict travel via the UK (as long as it is merely airside transit). In other words, it is about the origin and the destination, not about the routing - which is why BA can keep so many of those flights to France flying in the first place!

The fact that it is VS and BA is also not really a complicating factor here - BA and BA would be the same risk/problem if booked as separate tickets, because in both cases, it's about convincing BA that what looks like travel "from the UK" in terms of how it is booked, is in fact not so in terms of how the passengers' itinerary.

That indeed entails some element of uncertainty anyway, especially if for whatever reason, the check in staff were under the impression that the passenger may have in fact left the transit area (or simply misunderstand the rules). But, basically, that is what it is in the sense that if your friends want a 100% assurance their trip goes well, then they will need to rebook a new trip without the quirk of separate itineraries. The moment you have an "unusual" element here, there will be check in (transfer desk) staff who will act as gatekeepers between your friends and their flight to NCE. It means that your friends will be dependent upon those transfer desk staff and their teams' (the case of separate itinerary won't be unique so they will have put a way to handle it in place) understanding of the rules, any unplanned hiccup (in terms of planes being late or cancelled, etc) and so on so it will never be 100% certainty.