Oslo connection
 

Does anyone have experience of connecting at Oslo, non-schengen to non-schengen? I have several hours between flights and hoping to make use of lounge at OSL but it's usually before passport control. If I'm connecting, I wouldn't ordinarily pass through immigration entering Oslo. I wondered if I am able to access the lounge if I went via connections channel.

The lounges at OSL are in the Schengen area (i.e. before passport control when leaving) so you’ll have no issue. Also note that the connections channel was closed when I passed through in early September and so you had to go landside and re-clear security when connecting from non-Schengen to Schengen. It’s been that way since the pandemic and I don’t get the impression it’s changing. I suspect part of the reason is because on-arrival duty-free is massive in Norway and you would otherwise by-pass this going through the connections channel.

Yes I have done non-schengen to non-schengen at OSL. However this route bypasses the lounges and you end up in the non-schengen gate area with rather limited food and beverage outlets and no lounge access but there were plenty of nice and quiet places to sit. The bypass is quite neat, go straight to the head of the immigration queue and there is a small locked door on your left, you have to get the attention of a queue dragon and they get a person to accompany you through the door to a private security line.

if you go through passport control, then about 50m down the corridor after there is a connection point on your left which includes a security check, taking that one will take you down to the schengen area and you can head off to the lounge. coming back to the gate for departure you will go through exit passport control. you don't need to go fully landside to get to the Schengen area,

From my experience last year (and as others have suggested) I believe that route is now closed and everyone transferring must go through Norwegian immigration and through security.

also i guess in this case the OP doesn't want to be stuck in the non schengen area anyway for several hours, so it is not worth them trying that non-schenge->non-schengen route.

Immigration was horrific a few weeks back, they seemed to delight in closing desks and backing the line up way into the terminal. And this was a Sunday so fairly quiet

Emirates were getting nervous and pulling pax to the front, I made it through to my QR flight but I walked straight onboard.

In future I won't bother with the lounge and will head straight through.

Was at OSL immigration a few weeks back - above-average wait for Europe, but wasn't outrageous. There are also a few quirks, e.g. if you're connecting to Longyearbyen/Svalbard, even though this is ultimately non-Schengen it leaves from a Schengen gate.

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.

As others have said, if you want to go to the lounge then you have to go through immigration. However, recently the immigration queues going back to the Non Schengen area can get very very busy. On a recent flight with Qatar, the station manager was telling everyone at check-in not to leave going through immigration too long as they had to offload lots of passengers as they hadn’t got to the gate as immigration was backed up all the way into the main terminal.

I went through recently on a very delayed flight from LHR. My plan had been to spend the day in Olso city before my return to LHR in the early evening. That prospect vanished as I ended up with only just over an hour to go back.
So I went to the passport desk where the officer listened to my story. He sent me to the above-mentioned door where I rang the bell and waited. After about 10 mins I was taken through to the small security section and processed into the non-Schengen area. I asked a friendly customs officer if I could get to the lounge and he explained where it was and directed me to the closed exists from the passport desk. He told me to knock and wait. One of the doors duly opened, I repeated my story and was allowed into the Schengen area, and could thus access the lounge.

I reported it here.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...tinations.html

Given the lounge in question probably the best decision .. it's not great and quite small ( especially if you're there around the time Emirates / QR flights are going )

Despite asking twice and showing return boarding card, I was sent through immigration and right back through exit immigration today.

It was a bit of a faff, luckily no queues at either passport control. Arrived back at gate as Group 1 boarding was happening.

Felt tight, but doable. Perhaps tightened by catching up time from a go-around on inbound flight.

I'm considering a 1 hour connection from a QR flight from DOH to an SAS to LHR. I'll be HBO. Is this cutting it too fine even if incoming flight is on schedule? I'd be interested to hear if anyone has more recent experience of connecting non-Schengen to non-Schengen and whether you can avoid going via Immigration and back 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.

Not familiar with OSL so a question please. Considering a trip flying LHR-OSL with BA and then OSL-DXB with EK. The BA flight is scheduled to arrive at 1035 and the EK one to leave at 1435. These would be on different bookings/PNRs. That seems a reasonable connection to me but slightly concerned about the apparent need to go through immigration and risk of queues. Any thoughts?