My daughter is flying from Boston to Venice tomorrow, changing planes in Barcelona (and kind of changing airlines, but not terminals). I know for the USA, you have to clear immigration & customs when arriving on an international flight, even if you’re getting onto another international flight. Is the same true for the EU, or will she be able to just go to her next plane and continue on to Venice? Thank you.
In my understanding (and based on past experience) you have to clear customs and immigration at your point of arrival in the Schengen Area. (Spain and Italy are both Schengen countries.) So she will have to do that in Barcelona. There will not be any immigration controls on the Barcelona - Venice flight.
Spain and Italy are both members of Schengen, meaning they have no border controls between them. What this means in this case is that your daughter will go through a border control in Barcelona to enter Schengen. Once there there will.be no further control as long as she stays within Schengen, including Italy.
Edit: Ninja’d!
Ok thank you. Do you know if that also means she’ll have to claim her checked luggage go through customs and recheck it to Venice?
That was my experience, but it was pre-COVID, so I don’t know if things have changed since.
Assuming it’s all booked on one ticket, the luggage should be checked all the way to Venice. She should not have to claim it and recheck it in Barcelona. She should confirm this when checking in.
This brings up one odd procedure regarding Schengen: She won’t have to undergo any additional inspection in Venice, but there is a small probability that her luggage will! Luggage is not inspected at the point of first entry into Schengen (Barcelona in this case) but at the final destination.
This is how it works: Luggage tags have a special marking (a green stripe) if they were checked in inside a Schengen country. Luggage with those tags are not inspected at all within Schengen. Luggage without those tags, e.g. originally checked in in the US, are subject to inspection.
However, in many trips to Europe I’ve never had my luggage inspected in those cases. I just go through the “nothing to declare” line and I’ve never been stopped.
Just to clarify in case anyone is getting worried about flying in Europe, that here you are referring specifically to customs inspection.
Yes, perhaps I should have made that clearer.
Thank you all. I just dropped her at the airport and they did check her luggage all the way through to Venice.
Even if checked all the way through, I would still expect she would need to get her luggage for customs and quarantine. She would then take it to the check-in for the next flight.
Edit: This is because the first port of arrival is the only chance to check bags for quarantine breaches, once she’s on an internal “domestic” flight she’s just like any other internal passenger.
Edit 2: Reading @suranyi’s post it seems they have a better system than what I had in mind.
Customs inspections at EU airports are spot checks only. The probability that she is picked for an inspection is small (but admittedly > 0).
I guess this is all moot now as the lady in question has probably arrived in Venice by now. I hope she sent an email quoting Robert Benchley: “Streets flooded. Please advise.”
It is important to differentiate between “customs”, where your luggage is unlikely to be subject to more than a sniff by a trained dog, and "immigration " where passports are scrutinised and identities verified. In Europe (in or out of Schengen), the latter is taken far more seriously than the former.
She actually texted me moments ago that she landed in Venice. I’ll get more details about how the immigration/customs stuff went when she gets settled in.
There was pre-flight difficulty though. She’s going for 2 months for a college-type thing. She was told by the people setting it up that she could just buy a 1-way ticket if the prices for a round trip were too high at the moment. And her return date is somewhat amorphous at the moment, so she only bought a 1 way ticket.
When we went to check her in at the airport, we were told she couldn’t travel without proof of a return ticket. So we had to frantically search a travel app and buy a return ticket while the agent waited, then show him the ticket before he’d let her proceed. But she’s most likely going to cancel the ticket now that she’s arrived - she has 24 hours to cancel with no penalty.
Which leads to another question - what do students traveling for an entire semester or even an entire school year do about showing proof of a return ticket? They might not even be selling tickets for the time they want to return at the time they travel.
And she texted me again that her bag hasn’t arrived. Shit.
The reason why check-in agents ask to see a return ticket for short-term travellers is because immigration inspectors do, and the airline wants to reduce the risk of flying someone to a Schengen border who is refused entry there and whom the airline would then need to haul back. But the visa-free entry stamp upon arrival is limited to 90 days, so someone who stays beyond that would need a residence permit anyway and would present that at check-in.