No. ...
Again, no.

EWR, IAH. MIA, ORD, LAX and many other airports have been designed with international transit facilities in the architecture. Because of the USA's stupid policies these airports have opened up these terminals. But we're not talking about rebuilding or redesigning the terminals at all.

As for the amount of traffic lost, it is enough. A policy that unnecessarily inconveniences passengers and artificially limits the competitive ability of an industry is a bad one.
Well, in the USA this is the case. In the rest of the world not so much.

Some notes on the UK:

International and domestic passengers may share a departures area. However, as there is no ID requirement for domestic flights, domestic passengers will have a digital photo taken before security, which is linked to the barcode on their boarding pass. This is then checked at the gate during boarding. This prevents illegal immigration by somebody in international-to-international transit swapping boarding passes with a domestic passenger in the departures zone.

International-to-international transfers are allowed without entering the country. However, some nationalities need to have a transit visa to be allowed to do this.

International-to-Domestic transfers are allowed without clearing customs at the transit airport, in most cases. Luggage, in this case, may arrive at a special carousel for international transit passengers, or be flagged for a customs officer to inspect on arrival.

International arrivals are always segregated from departures - you need to re-clear security before being considered sterile. This was implemented post-9/11, and has resulted in some awkward arrangements in some older terminals (e.g. Heathrow 1 and 2) which were not set up with this in mind. At its worst, in Heathrow T2, the main pier corridor had to be partitioned, and departing passengers held back while arriving passengers cross over, all manually controlled by security staff. This could also mean delays on arrival, if there were too many departing passengers to hold back!

All departure ramps/gates are closed off, and opened by a card swipe & PIN at boarding time. There are, however, two types of boarding card inspection: one on entry to the gate area, one on boarding. The former can cause problems in case of last-minute delays, as passengers needing to leave the gate area (for toilets, shops, baby feeds, etc) no longer have their boarding passes, only the stubs (it's customary for a passenger to keep only the stub). In the past, this could further be compounded by pier entrances that were one-way due to mixing departing and arriving passengers (no longer possible).

A further quirk on boarding is that UK-registered airlines need to check passengers' boarding pass stubs at the entrance to the aircraft, to confirm they have reached the correct flight.

I've seen plenty of exceptions to this. The one I recall the most is Mexico like the other poster noted.

I do enjoy countries with either sterile international transfers or non-burdensome I&C (KEF, for example, where I've re-entered Iceland just because the queue at the restroom was too long in the international departure area), since I've actually missed connecting flights in several countries to bad backups at Immigration and/or Customs.

That's the main discussion on this thread. If you have an example to share, please do. It'll be highly appreciated. :)


How do the authorities separate people who need transit visas from those who don't, if transit passengers don't actually enter the country? Is it done when they are clearing security?

That doesn't sound good. According to your description, I'd say that Heathrow was designed more like airports in Brazil, with corridors running parallel to the concourse and separating gates from jetways. Bu the way, have you had a chance to fly in or out of LHR's new T5? I wonder how is the whole international arrival and connection experience there, since it was recently built and was designed with all the post-9/11 security measures in its architecture.

No, from the passenger manifest. They'll know what nationalities are on board, and have a record of what visas they've issued. If necessary, immigration can meet a flight. In addition, airlines get a hefty fine for allowing passengers without correct documentation to travel.

Well, T1 and T2 are pretty old - the main parts opened in the '60s. More recent airport design (including Heathrow 4 & 5, Gatwick, and many others) separated incoming and outgoing passengers - it's just that the situation at T1 and T2 wasn't considered a problem until later.

Sadly, I've not managed to travel from T5 yet.

The general design for UK airports, though, is to have departures upstairs, arrivals downstairs, and the airbridges on the inbetween level, with ramps in both directions, the flow controlled by doors. Alternatively, bus/apron gates will be on the lower level, with arrivals directed to a central arrivals point. There are exceptions, of course, and the separation of UK vs CTA vs international arrivals still varies.

Another note to make is about EU vs non-EU passengers. Intra-EU passengers don't have to clear customs, and so are directed down a separate channel at international arrivals. Entry to this channel is allowed if you have green fringes on your luggage tags. If you have hand luggage only... Then they just have to go on trust.

A few more notes, on Schengen zone airports...

Schengen makes life even more interesting. Some of the key rules:

- Intra-Schengen flights don't have routine immigration checks. However, these can be reinstated on request, by any national government in the scheme.
- Airports in the Schengen zone can (but don't have to) consider intra-Schengen flights to be sterile. Extra-Schengen flights are considered to be non-sterile.
- The Schengen zone and the EU are not one and the same. Some EU countries are non-Schengen and some Schengen countries are non-EU. So customs and immigrations requirements don't match.

It makes life complicated for airport authorities, particularly those with restricted space. Many big, Schengen-zone airports are there mostly for transit traffic (e.g. AMS) and so have been built with transfer and free movement in mind. Others have huge volumes, but are space-restricted, and need the flexibility to move aircraft from non-Schengen on to Schengen flights without having to physically move the aircraft. Some have been able to separate Schengen and non-Schengen zones. Some haven't. Some separate long-haul from short-haul, some don't. So, you may see:

- Intra-Schengen areas with a central security point for entrance and transfers and freely mixing inbound and outbound passengers (e.g. AMS).
- A central security point for non-Schengen, but inbound and outbound passengers segregated.
- Non-Schengen inbound and outbound passengers mixing, but security is located at each gate, so every passenger must clear it before boarding (even those originating within the Schengen zone).
- Domestic may be lumped in with intra-Schengen. Or it may be entirely separate, due to customs regulations (e.g. OSL).
- Gates may be flexible between intra-Schengen and extra-Schengen. If security is always at the gate, this may be achieved by having an optional per-gate immigration check (e.g. VIE). If security is central, this may be by taking the multi level design a step further: level 0 for non-Schengen arrivals, level 1 for Schengen departures and arrivals, level 2 for non-Schengen departures (e.g. FRA, AMS).

What about domestic transfers? You get off the plane, take a ramp down to arrivals and can you go back to the gate area right away, or you have to go through a transfers desk? I know probably domestic transfers rarely occur in the UK, given its size, but I guess they happen every once in a while.

So, is this design like the domestic concourses in the US, where arriving passengers get off the plane and go straight to the concourse and can roam freely from gate to gate (like the MSP picture), without having to go through transfers desks nor sterile corridors?

According to what you said earlier, this is the same design in use by UK airports, right? What are the major airports that use this type of flow?

Security check at the gate sounds odd. Is it very common or just a limited number of airports adopt this procedure?
So some European airports do have level separation for certain flows (US style), in order not to mingle passengers (domestic with international arrivals), instead of relying solely on glass separated sterile corridors (Brazil style). Again, how common is this? How does it work in other major airports, like CDG, BRU, MUC or MAD?

Generally, arriving international passengers to the US leave the plane, but are routed to a different level (upper or lower) of the terminal to the passport check. After the passport check, passengers collect checked baggage and then go to customs.

After customs the passengers are landside. In a properly designed airport, those for whom this airport is their final destination airport can leave for ground transportation. (In a badly designed airport, the only way out is through the security screened area, so they must go through security screening to leave. Note that this violates the rule that only ticketed passenger are to be allowed in the security screened area, and forces them to also recheck baggage and collect it afterward -- less security and less convenience.)

Those connecting to other flights typically find a baggage recheck station near the customs exit. They then go through security screening to get to the departure gate of their next flight.

But aren't all of the "exceptions" cases where the country does not require a customs check at the first airport in the country that one lands in on an international to domestic itinerary? (as the other poster noted, Mexico falls into this category)

Depends on the airport. As you say, some are simply not set up for this, but you do get airports like GLA which act as domestic hubs for remote locations (like the Scottish Islands). You could do a direct transfer in GLA, for example. Other airports just aren't set up for it at all.

Yes, that can happen. AMS is a good example of an airport like that - the B/C zone is Schengen-only, segregated, and with central security, and mingling passengers.

Yes, this is similar to UK airport flows. OSL is like this, for example.

There's also a hybrid, where a single pier (or area) may have separate security, and that incoming passengers are directed clear of that area. They, however, mingle with outgoing passengers in a non-sterile airside area, rather than going landside. This is common in airports like FRA and ZRH.

It's more likely to be the case for airports where the majority of passengers are international-to-international transfer passengers - like AMS. VIE is like this too, as is PRG and some of the 'halls' in CDG.

It needs quite a lot of capital investment in scanning equipment, but security staff can be directed to where they're needed quite precisely, so in some ways, it's a lot more efficient than having a central transfer security point which, at peak hub hours, often cannot cope (see the Flight Connections Centre at Heathrow).

It really depends on the role and the original design of the airport, how it can be adapted, and any additional local laws. Bear in mind that major airports serving European cities tend to be rather space constrained. Don't forget that plenty of Europe isn't in the Schengen zone, so has a whole series of different requirements. Some airports will have a good portion of domestic traffic (e.g. within Germany), others won't have any at all (e.g. BUD) or a couple of token services (e.g. AMS).

The most interesting is probably to look at how recent entrants to the Schengen zone have remodelled their airports to meet new requirements. Have a look at the websites for PRG and ZRH for examples of how this has been done.

First of all, thank you for your collaboration -- you've been bringing up a lot of useful information. Second thing is I looked up PRG and ZRH websites today and they are very interesting. Prague's I think is the best airport website ever, as it has those 360º picture tour, just great.

Lastly, I have looked up some airports on Bing Maps using its bird's eye feature (unfortunately not available at all locations). I found some interesting stuff:

Terminal 7 at JFK. Highlight goes for the jetway that moves up for international arrivals or down for all departures. Does anyone know other airports where this type of jetway is featured?
http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/66879cd3.jpg

Terminal 8 at JFK. The path for passengers arriving in international flights is clearly seen. First, escalators up (close to the jetways), then a sterile corridor that goes to an immigration hall.
http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/f0e7df48.jpg

LGW - London/Gatwick
http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/f2cb25d2.jpg

Can anyone tell why some gates are attached to a tall structure that connects the jetway to a corridor on the top level and some aren't? Does that corridor end in an immigration hall, like the one from JFK's T8 (pictured above)?

FRA - Frankfurt am Main
http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/561e16d6.jpg

All jetways are attached to multi-story structures. What is that for? Are these "flexible" gates, which can handle Schengen and non-Schengen arrivals and departures? I noticed similar structures in those satellite gates (E gates?) at ZRH, but the picture is not as good as FRA. By the way, I found some outside pictures of this concourse in FRA and there is a LH logo on each of the tall structures.

Frankfurt segregates passengers a number of ways.

1. Departing passengers are segregated into Schengen and non-Schengen.

2. Arriving passengers from a Schengen flight are assumed to be 'secure' and are immediately mixed in with the departing Schengen passengers. So, if you are arriving from one Schengen destination and departing to another, you (normally) can walk to your gate without encountering any additional security.

3. Arriving non-Schengen passengers enter into a controlled area where they are screened before they are allowed into join the remainder of the international departures. If they are transferring to an international destination, they may do so without entering Germany. If they are transferring to a Schengen flight, or Frankfurt is their final destination, they exit the international departures area through immigration and customs for carry-on luggage, and then continue to either their Schengen gate, or to collect their luggage at arrivals.

4. They pass through customs again after collecting their checked luggage whether in Frankfurt, or in the case of transferring Schengen passengers, at their final destination.

5. While having to pass through customs twice sounds onerous, in fact, it is not, because the customs process is much simpler in Germany. There are no forms, and examinations are much rarer than in the United States.

Now, having explained the process logically, the question is how do they do it physically. Frankfurt tends to work mostly on a physical separation of the gates -- that is, one wing is reserved for Schengen, and one for non-Schengen. For countries which require special additional or special screening for departing passengers (Israel, Russia, and the United States at times) a separate wing is used to separate these passengers from others.

Munich uses a similar segregation approach but uses levels to separate domestic from international passengers.

I'll just bring up one item that has been briefly touched upon in the thread. Every US airport I've been in has centralized security screening when going landside to airside. Many times this is for the entire terminal, although in some airports security will handle as few as a dozen gates or so. (PHX terminal 3 does this, 2 security checkpoints, one each for the 2 halves of the terminal). I have yet to see an airport in the US that uses "gate" security.

I remember a handful of airports in Europe where they did use "gate" security. If I remember correctly at TXL there was a check in counter next to the gate of your flight. You checked in, got the boarding pass and then walked through security to a rather small sterile area. If I remember correctly the sterile area I was in handled only one flight and had no food or drink options. I've also been gate cleared in AMS (for a US bound flight).

Another difference I've noticed is in the checking in process. Once again, in most US airports check in counters line a wall, often times in this pattern:

-----XXX------XXX------

Where the dashes are check in counters and the X's are security.

Airports I've been in within Europe seem to be set up a little different, with check in counters in the middle of a large floor space. The only place I've seen this setup is at IND, which is a brand new terminal. I've also seen check in setups in Europe where you check in for a specific flight, not necessarily for an airline, which I've never seen in the US.

Interesting observation. The international terminals at LAX and SFO and Terminal 7 at JFK also have the "European-style" counter setup, IIRC, although all of those airports have "American-style" counters elsewhere.

Here in Japan, the major international airports (NRT, KIX, and also NGO I think) have "European-style" counters, but domestic airports like HND, ITM and CTS generally have "American-style" counters. One exception is UKB, the new airport in Kobe, which has "European-style" counters, albeit small ones in a small terminal.

By the way, I think MCI has gate security screening, or something very similar.

I haven't been through there since they remodeled, but Kansas City used to have per-gate security. Which made connecting through there a real pain, especially post 9/11.