RJ1H

Dear all,

I'm pretty sure I won't need a visa for the following transits, but I'd appreciate the confirmation of some more experienced travellers:

In order to visit a few more airports, I'd love to visit SVO and LED, where TWOV should be possible according to IATA information. My plan would be to arrive from CDG (AF) and depart to AMS (KL) about 3 hours later (flight plan is pretty much the same for LED and SVO). One ticket, one PNR. OLCI is available for KL and AF, so I would already possess my boarding pass for the onward flight. And of course I would travel with hand luggage only.
Can you confirm that I will not need a visa for these (silly) transfers in Russia? I'm just afraid I will be denied to board my flight in Paris.

Regards

Sves

Definitely there is a special transit facility in SVO. Not sure about AF policy, but they frequently operate codeshared transit flights with SU and should be aware.

Concerto

Sounds like you're coming into Russia on either KL or AF and going out on either KL or AF, so on one ticket as you say. But Russia will be treated as the endpoint of the ticket, or the turning point if you like. I reckon they won't let you board, the system will just reject it if you don't have a visa. Even if you're flying out almost immediately.

RJ1H

Concerto

RJ1H

craz

Ive had numerous friends (all US citizens) transiting, some a couple of hours others much longer. As long as you dont have to change airports you should be good to go. Otherwise at least for a US Citizen a visa would be needed. Dont know what a Swiss person will need

Concerto

Once again, I am just not sure if, from your original post, your ticket is truly a transit or if SVO or LED represent the point of turnaround, the end point of the ticket. If it's the latter, I don't reckon you'll get on the plane for the outbound flight to begin with. But I have seen some itineraries that treat SVO as a transit, such as a routing to IST that I was looking at once, starting in some place like VIE or MUC. Be interested to hear how it goes.

RJ1H

Quick update on this: Did the CDG-SVO-AMS yesterday without any issues. Checked in online and let my physical boarding pass print in the lounge in 2E. Then advanced to the gate where my passport was checked. In lack of a visa, they wanted to see my eTicket. As the connection to AMS was in the same terminal (SVO-E) and within 24h, I could board without any further questions.
In SVO I went straight to the international transfers desk. As I already had my bp printed out, I could advance to passport control. Afterwards the bp gets checked and stamped - no questions there. Finally there's a quick security check and you're back on departures level of SVO-E. All in all this process took me like 5 minutes. Given the size of the airport, I guess in LED it will be even easier.

Sves

There is interesting point: transit facility is not available for passengers with Russian passports. They have to pass Immigration for entry & exit at once.