nacho

It has been like that since they started the border control thing, Mr said "it feels like going to Eastern Europe" when we were going back from DK to SE. That was when we were living in SE and we always have to prepare for the ordeals when we crossed.

The situation got much better after we started using our Swedish passports.

FlyingMoose

More annoyed with the Swedish Police's unwillingness / incapability to scale passport booths during the morning rush at ARN of long-haul arrivals. Especially annoyed when there are police doing nothing but standing around and looking at the long queues rather than opening more booths. It also seems to be a trend to have no or just 1 line for EU passport and the other lines as general passport lines meaning everyone gets stuck and incurs long unnecessary delays.

This issue is getting exponentially worse.

FlyingMoose

On another note, SAS just kindly allowed me to cancel 2 itineraries with MIA flights because of flight schedule changes where in each case the MIA-ARN direct was replaced with a layover in CPH. While Google still shows the direct, it was mostly removed on flysas.com, I only see it left for a small number of dates (like Jan 20th). I didn't see any announcement about this change but I'm now flying LX directly to GRU instead.

nacho

It's like that by the bridge since they started this passport check. There were 3 police in booth chitchatting and only 2 booths were open, imagine waiting there after a long day of work and all you wanted was to go home.

GUWonder

At least CPH passport control hasn’t gotten exponentially worse as of late.

Maybe ARN should get some automated border control kiosks and then not use them for whatever reason.

I’ve been in some ARN “All Passports” lines where as soon as the EU crowd seemed to have mostly cleared out they would shut down to only one “All Passports” control line and the remaining police women staffing “All Passports” would slow go it like crazy. That it would get worse shouldn’t really be a surprise with Swedish passport control — they are a product of their environment.

Fredrik74

Them going slow once the EU travellers are gone isn't strange because most of these should be faster to process.

The last time I arrived at ARN they still hadn't learned that there should be one long line which is separated to the booths as late as possible. That way people won't get stuck behind whatever problematic arrival there could be. I also wonder why there's so little EU passports booths when that's an easy way to clear many travellers.

CPH-Flyer

Just because it can't possibly get any worse at CPH, my co-traveler on a trip to Denmark recently spent an hour getting out of Denmark in the non-EU passport line. If you try to make a complaint the airport will (correctly) say talk to the police department, but the police department basically says "talk to the airport, they are in charge of capacity"

Though I will say that the airport is in charge of the weird lack of structure to the lines, and for their app not showing waiting time at passport control when going to D gates as non schengen departure.

GUWonder

The Swedish passport control police at ARN would slow go the All Passports line even more after the EU lanes were empty and abandoned than when the neighboring EU lines were busy. Got the sense that they didn’t care much to value foreigners’ time being unnecessarily wasted by their deliberate slow-going it after coming around to guessing that the Swedes had all been cleared.

If you want to speed up being cleared into or out of Schengen at SAS hubs, picking the lines with men working the position at SAS hubs and KEF is the way to go. Whether with a Scandinavian passport or not.

But that’s not exponentially worse than what would sometimes hit me at CPH before the pandemic. [I only have US passports.]. And I’ve never gotten the sense that Danish passport control “slow go it” more after they assume all the Danes have been cleared.

CPH-Flyer

No, it is just as appalling bad as always. The point where it really deteriorated was probably when the brilliant minds of the Danish parliament reintroduced the concept of more or less permanent passport control at the Danish German border without ramping up the overall resources the police has.

nacho

That's pretty bad, I was there in week 42 (the prime time for family travel), the queue for non-EU wasn't even half way to the pop up shop on the right hand side of it. I was talking to Mr why they don't put out machines like FRA/MUC and he said machines cost more than 2 people checking passports

Yes, my in-laws who are living in Southern Jutland are not happy about this. Once in a while they are still using military people to do the stupid passport check. When we go during holidays there are crazy queues and it's just not sustainable and totally against the Schengen Treaty.

jamesbrownontheroad

A common misconception is that the machines replace people checking passports. They don't. They simply automate the process of scanning the passport and photographing the passenger, and then they present it digitally to an officer located in a booth nearby. At FRA and LHR you will see these officers working behind a desk just after you exit the automated gates. They are capable of reviewing and approving many more passengers per hour in this way.

nacho

Yeah there are 2 officers at FRA/MUC and they are there to check passport for kids under 12 too, but then the max. officer you need is 2 instead of 4 in CPH. I think the machines read if anyone is flagged in the system, and I saw people being rejected through the machines and had to go through manual check. At FRA if you get through the machines check you still need to walk through the booth but then you don't need to stop again. Basically, all they need is a record of a person leaving the country and to make sure that wanted people won't get let out.

GUWonder

CPH passport control really deteriorated for me with “All Passports” processing from around when they decided to go for automated border control/egates for most EU/Schengen country passport users there.

oliver2002

In Germany the officer is there to monitor the process, manually check any rejects and stamp the passports of the non EEA travellers (who can use the egates under the easy RTP scheme). The officer sitting there doesn't interfere in the egate process, the capturing of data and crosscheck with the SiS database is copmpletely automated. Persons under the age of 12 are not allowed to use the egates (since the images in the database don't meet the required biometric standard and the cameras cannot go below 1m40cm height). The officer behind the egate will not be able to process such persons as they are not physically able to bypass the egate and get to them.

The schengen articles have been amended a few years ago so that the EES allows for self capturing and processing. Some details can be found here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-cont...PC0196&from=EN

FlyingMoose

ARN could also just stop scanning every single passport for the purpose of finding people with outstanding taxes and thereby slowing down the process unnecessarily. Most EU entry points just briefly look at (Western) EU passport and wave you through. The 25second scanning of every single passport for Skatteverket is the nonsense that slows SE entry down. Ironically there is never anyone at T2 customs when entering from Schengen so anyone purposefully avoiding customs/border would just layover somewhere.