Following the recent incident in Paris, it came out that the alleged perpetrators were on the US No Fly List. When a reporter asked what that exactly means the ‘expert’ said that when they arrived in the US they would be held at the airport and questioned before being allowed into the US.
Is this correct? I had assumed that someone on the list would not be allowed to board a plane heading for the US. If we let them land and then ask them questions how exactly is that a no fly list? What am I missing here?
At least for flying to the USA, they would not have been allowed to board.
Not sure how that applies if they are inside security and transferring from an internal European flight, unless the boarding gate for the USA has them flagged. Of course, I assume that’s based on passport name, birth date and place, so if they have documents that lie, they might make it as far as the USA.
But then, the quality of US security is demonstrated by the case of the Boston bombers.
The airlines check their passenger list with the TSA before the passengers are allowed to board. The airlines are held accountable if they aren’t following procedures to fly to the US. I don’t know if it has come to this but the airlines can lose their permission to fly to the US if they don’t comply.
Are arriving passengers also routinely checked again at Customs, just in case any no-fly-guys somehow slipped past security at their originating airport?
Customs probably has the more detailed list, access to Interpol records, etc. - stuff the airlines don’t. Just because your name did not match the no-fly list does not mean customs will let you in. They have a lot more discretion and resources, and maybe they don’t like the answers to the questions they ask. The No-Fly list is just a first filter.
IIRC if an airline delivers someone to a US airport and customs refuses him entry because his documents were not correct - and the airline should have seen this - then the airline is responsible for flying him home… and then it’s their problem to recover that cost from the passenger.