A bit of confusion here with all the acronyms.
ETIAS is a red herring for GA – it is just like the US visa waiver, non-EU nationals do it once every three years if they travel to the EU.
For EES it is open what procedures for border crossings will be in place for airfields without permanent immigration presence and the corresponding equipment. This may very will close a lot of airfields for non-EU traffic.
Cobalt wrote:
ETIAS is a red herring for GA – it is just like the US visa waiver, non-EU nationals do it once every three years if they travel to the EU.
If it’s just like the US visa waiver, then it won’t work for most of GA. You can only enter the US with ESTA/visa waiver on an approved carrier. If you arrive in the USA in your own aircraft you’ll need to get a visa first. So hopefully ETIAS doesn’t work the same way.
Doesn’t mean it will be the same in every detail. For example ETIAS is planned to be valid for 3 years, ESTA for 2 years. US immigration rules are also quite different from the EU – pretty much only Canadians don’t need a visa, and the visa WAIVER program waives that requirement, but only on eligible carriers.
The big threat for GA is EES. It is a system designed around airports and for these it will be great when it works, because it makes e-gates available to all nationals and has the potential to reduce waiting times considerably.
But the politicians designing it did forget or did not care about the pratcicality for other border crossings – GA airports and roads and priobably ports
If they decide to not care, nothing much will change. A miniscule number of people will enter and leave without their biometrics being verified.
If they decide that everyone must be checked because, well, reasons, then the number of airports available will decrease and/or border police presence will be mandatory for arrival and departure.
DavidC wrote:
One potentially serious issue is that airlines are required to give 48 hours prior notice of all passenger details. Ryanair have complained strongly about that constraint – it stops them selling tickets less than 2 days in advance. It also seems crazy to prevent citizens from travelling abroad with less notice.
This is totally unacceptable.
The big trouble here is delays and rebookings. Not even the US have a problem with that. If a passenger manifest is “frozen” in place 48 hours before the flight, anyone who misses a flight due to connections or other inconveniences would be stranded for 48 hours? Not to speak of short notice travel? This would bring several high profile routes to a stand still.
Cobalt wrote:
A bit of confusion here with all the acronyms. API (advanced passenger information). Provided for each flight by the airline. Deadline: close of check-in. Also operated by Eurotunnel car shuttles. ETIAS (european travel information and authorisarion system). Requested by and provided to an individual. Required for non-EU nationals or residents who do not need visa. Valid for three years. Dealine: needs to be issued before departure, decision can take 48 hours (planned) so effectively 48 hours before the first flight to any EU country every three years EES (entry-exit system). Border checkpoints where – instead of passport stamping – entries and exits are recorded electronically. Involves biometric identification – either a face scan or fingerprints – at the checkpoint.
Ok, but this would be then a totally different ball game. Deadline close at check in is already status quo for most travel to the UK and many other countries who penalize airlines for allowing pax to travel without fulfilling entry requirements.
ETIAS if it is done this way would be like ESTA, so a non-event as long as you can actually apply for it unrelated to booking a flight. Yes, the first time you do it you have a 48 hour PPR so to speak but if renewal can be done before the old one expires, like in the US, then it’s not an issue.
EES per se then only is the infrastructure at the airports. Again, not an issue for airlines.
However, I agree that EES may well be a huge problem for GA, as most “airline airports” these days outprice GA and they are the ones who are likely to have the infrastructure. Even today the number of AoE’s who are capable of Non-Schengen entrys is not that great and with this, will become even less so. And those AoE’s who do have it will be outpriced airline airports.
Once again, it is high time that airports need to be forced to become infrastructure again instead of profit centers. Otherwise Non-Schengen GA border crossing may become next to impossible for small GA short of 200 Euro airports with then another PPR e.t.c.
Also, particularly for people from the UK, the question will arise if ETIAS works like ESTA, which only is valid for airline travel. In this case, a visum would be required to travel GA.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Once again, it is high time that airports need to be forced to become infrastructure again instead of profit centers.
Given that the EU is (economically speaking) a neoliberal project, that’s not going to happen in the EU at least.
Which end of the journey (if not both) is driving this initiative?
Say you are flying UK to Germany, what is the benefit to Germany in getting that data and who will be looking at it? AFAIK the airline data is merely checked against a list of known suspects; it can’t be anything else because it is transmitted when the gate closes and the flight could be 30 mins, discharging 150 people upon landing, who can walk straight out if they have no hold baggage.
Germany to UK is fine because the UK GAR form deals with “everything”. And the UK doesn’t normally implement something totally stupid because the decisions are made by a small number of people (probably 1, in the DfT) and only in one country.
Peter wrote:
Say you are flying UK to Germany, what is the benefit to Germany in getting that data and who will be looking at it?
If it’s anything like the system the US uses, the pax list will be compared against their database of people who are allowed to enter vs those who are not. If there are any people detected which are indadmissible, they will either be stopped on arrival or prior departure. Immigration are the folks who look at it.
Peter wrote:
And the UK doesn’t normally implement something totally stupid because the decisions are made by a small number of people
The UK had a very similar system in force for many years, actually I recall that they were the first to fine airlines if a passenger they transported to the UK was inadmissible. That was well before Schengen. However, it was not an electronic system but physical document checks on departure. If that is still done, (it is for many destinations outside Europe) I don’t know as I have not travelled to the UK post Brexit.
In general there is also nothing wrong with something like that, as long as it does not mean that each airport which receives flights from the UK or other non Schengen countries needs the full monty of infrastrucre and so on. In theory, those immigration checks can also be done via mobile devices. The question will be how it will be implemented at airports which have no permanent immigration facilities.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Given that the EU is (economically speaking) a neoliberal project, that’s not going to happen in the EU at least.
politically speaking it is not that straightforward.
The Infrastructure route together with a safety case with EASA are the only way I can see as a chance to stop the handling abuse for small airplanes. Currently, I’d judge the better chance would be via the safety case (as in the outpricing and denial of service presents a risk to GA as it will keep people from using the said airports in emergency or other situations where a landing could prevent accidents) but on principle, the only thing which could do away with this for good is the declaration of all airports, airfields e.t.c. as public infrastructure with no right to hamper any form of traffic. But I agree that this is wishful thinking.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
One potentially serious issue is that airlines are required to give 48 hours prior notice of all passenger details.
This is totally unacceptable.
It is also complete and utter BS.
There is no such requirement. It is the opposite – the carrier has to perform a check of traveler details against ETIAS within the 48 hours before scheduled departure, and not earlier. The relevant regulation is here: Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1380
(3) Pursuant to Article 45(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1240, air carriers, sea carriers and international carriers transporting groups overland by coach are to send a query to ETIAS in order to verify whether travellers subject to travel authorisation requirement are in possession of a valid travel authorisation. Such a query is to be made by means of secure access to a carrier gateway.
(10) In order to ensure that the verification query is based on as up-to-date information as possible, queries should not be introduced earlier than 48 hours prior to the scheduled time of departure.
If anyone is interested in the details of this – here is the document, of course aimed at “carriers” Frontex Carrier FAQs
the pax list will be compared against their database of people who are allowed to enter vs those who are not
There cannot be a database of the former. There will be a limited database of the latter.
So what prevents you simply sending the UK GAR to the (say) German police? One already often does that because the UK GAR contains all the relevant “GENDEC” data. Never had a problem with it.
