Unexpected Schengen border controls
#16
Easy to say who's either read this before (I hadn't) or flies a lot in North America (sadly any European company uses that). My question is, why do we have to use abbreviations/acronyms. As for IATA airports (let me simply use Greek examples), why should any normal person understand that SKG is Thessaloniki, JTR is Santorini, CHQ is Chania, and MJT is Mytinini?
Also, are FT users normal? There are still less than 700K members worldwide...
They may be easier to guess if they were limited to one country, but even that would be a stretch. However, it is generally simple to know if an airport is in Canada (much of the time, it begins with a "y.")
#17
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: LHR
Programs: Ex-NWA Plat
Posts: 1,480
#18
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 2,443
I read today that Swedish parliament is looking at legislation to enable Sweden to effect a quick temporary closure of the Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden (or the Öresund Bridge if you prefer it in Swedish) (see, e.g., here).
Passport-free travel between Denmark and Sweden, and the other Nordic countries, really has little to do with Schengen and dates back to the creation of the Nordic Passport Union in the mid-1950s, so the imposition of any sort of controls on any of the intra-Nordic countries is quite extraordinary.
And regarding (what I see as) the over-use of abbreviations, just like KLouis I find them very irksome (and not just on FlyerTalk forums)!
Passport-free travel between Denmark and Sweden, and the other Nordic countries, really has little to do with Schengen and dates back to the creation of the Nordic Passport Union in the mid-1950s, so the imposition of any sort of controls on any of the intra-Nordic countries is quite extraordinary.
And regarding (what I see as) the over-use of abbreviations, just like KLouis I find them very irksome (and not just on FlyerTalk forums)!
#19
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
I read today that Swedish parliament is looking at legislation to enable Sweden to effect a quick temporary closure of the Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden (or the Öresund Bridge if you prefer it in Swedish) (see, e.g., here).
Passport-free travel between Denmark and Sweden, and the other Nordic countries, really has little to do with Schengen and dates back to the creation of the Nordic Passport Union in the mid-1950s, so the imposition of any sort of controls on any of the intra-Nordic countries is quite extraordinary.
And regarding (what I see as) the over-use of abbreviations, just like KLouis I find them very irksome (and not just on FlyerTalk forums)!
Passport-free travel between Denmark and Sweden, and the other Nordic countries, really has little to do with Schengen and dates back to the creation of the Nordic Passport Union in the mid-1950s, so the imposition of any sort of controls on any of the intra-Nordic countries is quite extraordinary.
And regarding (what I see as) the over-use of abbreviations, just like KLouis I find them very irksome (and not just on FlyerTalk forums)!
Most of these governmental characters pushing for this stuff barely use this bridge and/or have no idea how disruptive such closures would be to the communities that rely on the bridge nearly daily or even to their own costs of goods and services.
A closure of the bridge (even for weather) creates major havoc in the lives of persons living and working around the region as lots of people live in one country and work in the other; and usually the weather-related closures are announced in advance or planned around in advance courtesy of anticipation of reported bad weather pending.
The daily commute being disrupted -- especially mid-work-day without much advance notice -- would result in hundreds if not thousands of Swedish and Danish children being stuck at daycares and schools with no adult at their home to return to for the night. And I won't even get into the situations where people needing to give birth in a hospital have had to be sent to Copenhagen across the bridge because Swedish hospitals with open beds were too far away.
This is almost as bad an idea as the opposition party members who advocated for putting machine guns pointed at the bridge.
I guess boats will become more popular. Already, some people are buying boats to cross from Denmark to Sweden. And while the government can go after so-called human traffickers' boats, not sure what they can do to go after refugees' own boats. At least two cheap boats with refugees have managed to come into Sweden from Denmark although the Swedish officials only have reports of one such entry as of yet. And given how many harbors there are in Sweden, shutting them all down is going to only irk the wealthier and better connected Swedes and thus unlikely to happen and happen effectively.
#20
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Chicago, USA
Programs: TK Elite ...and blue, lots of blue...
Posts: 746
to stay with the OP's question: German airports (FRA, MUC) had police at the gates on arrival, "randomly" checking passengers. I'm putting "randomly" between quotes because from what I've seem, it looked like some racial profiling was involved.
#21
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
There racist profiling is indeed involved; and usually the targets of racist profiling at those two airports are allowed to pass upon a quick eyeballing of the passport/ID -- mostly done without running the physically-presented-to-police ID/passport against any electronic databases.
#22
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Chicago, USA
Programs: TK Elite ...and blue, lots of blue...
Posts: 746
There racist profiling is indeed involved; and usually the targets of racist profiling at those two airports are allowed to pass upon a quick eyeballing of the passport/ID -- mostly done without running the physically-presented-to-police ID/passport against any electronic databases.
#23
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
In some cases they are looking for people without documents of some type; and in other cases they are looking for certain types of people with certain types of document used at some point in the journey.
The authorities seem to think a show of force (even with farcical elements) is adequate -- even as there are ways around it. This is sort of like squeezing a partially-inflated balloon, even if they did full investigative checks of every document in passenger possession at the airports.
#24
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Germany, Austria
Programs: IHG Diamond Ambassador, ALL Silver,, Miles&More
Posts: 1,122
Yes it is more a show or a random check on base of visual criteria but not consequently done.
As example the major highway border crossing points
A1 (Austria) to A8 (Germany) at Walserberg (Salzburg/Bad Reichenhall)
and
A12 (Austria) to A93 (Germany) at Kufstein/Kiefersfelden
are controlled, in a way that 2 or 3 tracks are reduced to 1 where cars have to slow down to step speed and the vehicles do pass a police officer without stopping. I have never been stopped or controlled (local German car reg. no., newer middle class car, white, European appearance, short hair, decent dressed - after all my experience living more than 40 years in the border region, so also before Schengen, I think those are the criteria). Austrian local cars are not stopped as well normally. Small transport vehicles might be stopped even if they have local registration.
The minor border crossing points (Federal roads and state roads) at the same places are not controlled, rarely they put a police car there but stay inside.
As example the major highway border crossing points
A1 (Austria) to A8 (Germany) at Walserberg (Salzburg/Bad Reichenhall)
and
A12 (Austria) to A93 (Germany) at Kufstein/Kiefersfelden
are controlled, in a way that 2 or 3 tracks are reduced to 1 where cars have to slow down to step speed and the vehicles do pass a police officer without stopping. I have never been stopped or controlled (local German car reg. no., newer middle class car, white, European appearance, short hair, decent dressed - after all my experience living more than 40 years in the border region, so also before Schengen, I think those are the criteria). Austrian local cars are not stopped as well normally. Small transport vehicles might be stopped even if they have local registration.
The minor border crossing points (Federal roads and state roads) at the same places are not controlled, rarely they put a police car there but stay inside.