ffay005

For SIN-HEL-AMS:
- your flight from SIN will pour straight into a gate area (on the non-Schengen side but this info is irrelevant)
- follow the signs to passport control
- after passport control, follow signs to your new gate (could be someting like 25)

That's it. Couldn't be simpler.

weegraeme

Thanks.

Steve_Hun

Guaranteed that you don't have to go to landside (unless you miss your connection and you decide to go landside for any reason). The only question we are discussing here whether you arrive to the gate area and can head straight to immigration (because SIN is considered as a safe airport), or first you need to go through transfer security and then to immigration (if SIN is "not a safe" airport). Regardless of the fact that your final destination is AMS, you'll enter the Schengen area in HEL, an area consisting of 26 countries, between which there is no border control and thus passport checks.

WilcoRoger

For immigration reasons arriving from S'pore to Finland and continuing to the Netherlands is basically the same as arriving from S'pore to WA and continuing to NT

weegraeme

Thanks. I would definitely consider Changi a safe airport. On a previous trip, we had to be security screened to get back on to the same aircraft we'd just got off.

Thank you all for your help. I'll take your collective word that it will all go well. It just seems strange to think about border control being in one country but customs being in another. But I'll take your word that that works, too.

LondonElite

Not really. The Schengen area is, in principle, a free travel zone, so it makes sense that you clear immigration for this zone at the first port of entry. You are then free to travel within this zone without further immigration checks. Customs is a completely different issue and deals with what you can bring into a country and whether or not there are duties to be paid. That is relevant only for the country you actually enter. So, if you were to end your travel in Helsinki, Finnish customs formalities would apply. If Helsinki is merely your first port of entry to Schengen and you are travelling onto France, Finnish customs authorities don’t care how many cigarettes you are importing, but their French counterparts do.

This is why it is important to distinguish between immigration and customs.

WilcoRoger

When flying from HEL to AMS you'll just walk out the airport in AMS, without being stopped by customs (or even seeing them) Your luggage tag will show that the origin is from outside the EU (no green stripe) but there won't be any formal customs clearance or declarations to make.

Somewhat OT: once flying HGK-MUC-HEL German customs were out in force and stopped most transit pax - so much so, that they wanted to see receipt for my wife's watch (either they were looking for counterfeits or for high value, undeclared items) So customs was done at first point of entry.

Aviating

The customs check is basically first for carry on when you enter the first airport in EU. Then it is for your checked luggage when you pass the customs at you destination.

You have to take the green lane and have no green stripes on your luggage if entering outside of EU. Intra EU you take the blue lane and have green stripes on the luggage tag (obviously no check-in luggage you can as well take the blue lane at destination)

Red lane always if you have something to declare.

LondonElite

To be clear, it is entirely possible that someone arriving initially from outside Schengen (ie no green stripes on luggage tag) is stopped by customs when exiting through the green lane, as part of a random or indeed targeted check. I see this all the time.

TomMM

CDG has a Yotel

duvin

Missing the references to businetic bounces on an Australia-EU itinerary via HEL.

WilcoRoger

Here you are

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34041155-post100.html

intuition

Perhaps @duvin means missing as in not getting it (ie not as in haven't seen enough of them for a long time)?

Someone might need to explain these references, because they are impossible to get for anyone besides those who partook in the original thread.

LondonElite

I'm still curious if OP's parents had a return journey on that ticket.

Steve_Hun

Should that be the case, duvin , you can have some fun here