Posted on 10/21/2021 4:16:24 AM PDT by 11th_VA
SAN FRANCISCO -- COVID travel restrictions are slowly easing up, but rules keep changing and vary from one place to the next. So when a California couple booked a trip to Greece, they had no idea of the nightmare ahead.
Greece had lifted travel restrictions and this couple had all the documents Greece requires. But the trip unraveled when they tried to connect to their flight in Switzerland. They were stopped at the gate and worse, the police came and arrested them.
"I was shocked. I thought it was some kind of a joke, like we'd be able to just explain to them..." said Cindy Miller. She and her friend Brett were headed for a three week tour of Greece.
"I'd always wanted to go there since I was a kid," Miller said. "We haven't taken a trip for 18 months because of COVID."
They booked a Swiss Air flight from San Francisco to Athens, with a connection in Zurich. It all went smoothly until that connection in Zurich.
"The passport control guy says, 'You can't come in.' I'm like, 'What do you mean we can't come in? There's my gate, my flight is leaving in two hours.' That's when the whole thing happened. He took our passports, he called the police. The police came full on, police with guns... took us into the basement which is a police station..." she said.
Swiss police said their gate technically was inside Switzerland... and Americans were banned from Switzerland because of COVID-19. They'd have to be deported - all the way back to California.
"They showed us deportation papers, I'm crying... they put us in this area that had bunk beds with mixed men and women. They said, 'Here if you need to buy a toothbrush...
(Excerpt) Read more at abc7chicago.com ...
“There’s a whole lot of ‘Do Not Travel’ areas out there (colored in red), including a few surprises.”
Yeah, but there is an important distinction between “Do Not Travel” and “May Not Travel.”
I think there is plenty of blame to share for this goat rope.
There is separate terminal for non-schengen flights at ZRH. Anybody flying from USA passes through passport control - whether they are connecting onwards or not. This is the same as in USA for anyone arriving from Europe (ICE/customs enforcment before connecting flight)
The ground staff at their point of departure seems to have dropped the ball in not checking their travel documents before they left for ZRH.
Just checked. USA is considered a risk area and you can only enter Switzerland if you are fully vaccinated. This includes transit areas. It takes all of about 5 minutes to find this out. (https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/sem/aktuell/faq-einreiseverweigerung.html)
Further, I know for a FACT that travel from the US is indeed possible as I have meet many Americans here recently that have just arrived and here for as a tourist.
Here is a link to a “travel check” which would have avoided the whole situation: https://travelcheck.admin.ch/home
Also, the standard procedure (even in the US unless you come in via the southern border) when someone appears at customs / immigration and they do not have the proper documents to enter the country is to detain and deport them!
The Swiss can be a-holes, don’t kid yourself. And they had zero problem hosting the Davos party this year, but a woman catching a connecting flight is verboten!
If she would have arrived from a private jet it woulda been just fine.
COVID aside, I try not to be inside Switzerland. I have traveled to many countries and the people there have, by far, been the rudest I have encountered. If you think about the reputation Germans have for being stern, double that and add no sense of humor for the Swiss I have interacted with.
“Hey honey, let’s fly overseas and hope we don’t get mistreated”
Sheeple
True, but Frankfurt is in Germany and the were arrested in Zurich
I read a fascinating study conducted after WWII. Unlike the propaganda that tried to sell German soldiers who were not in the SS as benign patriots, many, probably most, had participated in brutal murder of civilians. It was expected that those soldiers would return to civilian life and continue their brutal ways. Turns out their behavior was no more barbaric than would be expected in any western society.
The study concluded that people act in whatever way is socially acceptable to the general populace. When brutal behavior fell out of “style” and civilization came back into vogue the vast majority of Germans, including those who served in the SS, Gestapo and other terror organizations simply blended in to the civilized society imposed by the Allies.
This may explain why American society is getting so violent. BLM, riots, thefts are all being winked at. Since society at large approves of robbing Walgreens, assaulting children in schools, it’s okay now.
A friend’s very lightly built son was brutally attacked in a hallway at high school. At a meeting with all the parents they reviewed the video. The school said they were expelling all the boys. But the father said, “You’re not expelling my son. He was minding his own business and he was attacked.” But, zero tolerance. When the father threatened the school with legal action they relented and only expelled the black children. One of the black fathers got loud, screaming racism. A black deputy Sherriff who had been standing against the wall interviewed. The deputy told my buddy, “I’m here because we see those four parents a lot. And as nasty as they are, there’s nothing we can do. I’ll walk you and your wife to the car.”
Happy ending. The son refused to go back to school. He home schooled himself while working a near full time off books job. He graduated 18 months early and is working on an HVAC license.
But, essentially, our society has become a third world $%^& pit.
What idiots this couple are. It’s the traveler’s responsibility to comply with travel restrictions.
At the very least, Swiss Air should have checked their documentation before departing the US for Switzerland. This is on Swiss Air in my opinion.
And personally, I don’t think Swiss Air should sell tickets to Americans if the flight passes through territory that Americans are not allowed to enter.
I’d agree with you if this couple were specifically buying tickets to Switzerland. But they weren’t. They were buying tickets to Greece. Swiss Air should not have been allowed to sell them these tickets.
I am absolutely in love with the Lake Lugano region. Plan on going back there for a month soon...
It is beauty beyond words.
In July, my travel through Paris for a transfer required that I go through customs again just for a transfer. I think it was because my connection flight was within the EU. The same is true when I transfer in JFK to a connecting USA flight.
But Switzerland is not in the EU.
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