Earlier quoted context omitted.
LOL do you think they actually carry badges? That would be quite incriminating. Instead, it’s more like they are carrying fake passports issued by the Russian Federation. But, one likely would not get caught traveling on a fake passport issued by their country’s government’s spy service, unless they had already travelled on another (perhaps legit) passport abroad (Russia has internal passports too) that has fingerpri…
Russia provides passports for Belarussian agents?
Do countries get the list of every passenger that's transiting their airspace?
121–128 of 128 posts
Re: Do countries get the list of every passenger that's transiting their airspace?
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
same experience here and I'm also all over Europe. The time when you could just fly without hassle only lasted a few years. Now I have to look into the empty eyes of some dweeb wanting to check my passport like I'm entering Beirut in 1982. I feel obliged to thank them out of artificial politeness but really want to just ask them why they had to get a job that allows them to display power. Not that these checks ever p…
Also in Europe, but with a completely different experience; it is (well, was, pre-covid) easy to move between EU states. Within the Schengen Zone it's only the check at the gate to check your ID matches your boarding pass (so no check at "immigration"), and to/from the UK the electronic gates have really sped things up (compared to the old days). YMMV but I find I'm rarely waiting more than a few minutes at the immig…
Especially stupid since I’ll be flying into southern France from neighbouring Brussels or Frankfurt. Like, if I’m up to no good, I could drive into France more quickly.
They’re allowed to do it “temporarily”, so they just renew their exemption year after year.
Re: Do countries get the list of every passenger that's transiting their airspace?
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
interesting. this seems to indicate that Schengen countries decided on a national level if they wanted to do checks on their borders. I have seen hard passport checks within Schengen in Croatia, Sweden, Germany, France and Portugal. Good to hear the UK has improved. I should have mentioned I haven't been there since 2018. I was expecting that brexit made things worse and had no idea
This really doesn’t add up. Who was performing these hard passport checks? An airline employee? Where was your flight originating from/going to?
Allowed “Temporarily” under “extenuating” circumstances and “only as a last resort”, so they renew it every year and have provided zero proof of its effectiveness. It’s just theatre.
If they applied it to road traffic too, then, okay, fine at the airport too. But checking passports of people coming in from a neighbouring country by air only is beyond stupid.
https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/border...
Extra do-nothing jobs at Toulouse airport that receives few non-Schengen flights.
Re: Do countries get the list of every passenger that's transiting their airspace?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cultural difference between the US and Europe is very interesting. In the US, when a flight is overbooked, the airline is allowed to bump anyone if they provide good enough compensation. Usually what happens is the airline “auctions” being bumped where they keep upping the “benefit” for staying. Usually that’s just a voucher for the next flight out, a gift card for the future, and a nights stay in a hotel. “We’re…
As someone that's taken these offers before I think you're making a lot of assumptions. Yes there's some people on the plane with important business but on a plane with a 100+ people it's exceedingly likely there's also people casually travelling. $500+ in airline credit to move their flight to the morning is a real deal. Personally I'd rather be in this system and pay lower airfare prices than pay a premium to guara…
Re: Do countries get the list of every passenger that's transiting their airspace?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
My bad
You were not completely wrong. There is a long story of state agents trying to access SWIFT messages. At some point, SWIFT had to set up a backup data center in Switzerland in order to route European transactions within Europe. The other data center is in the Netherlands.
And they do not have a data center in Asia.
Re: Do countries get the list of every passenger that's transiting their airspace?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cultural difference between the US and Europe is very interesting. In the US, when a flight is overbooked, the airline is allowed to bump anyone if they provide good enough compensation. Usually what happens is the airline “auctions” being bumped where they keep upping the “benefit” for staying. Usually that’s just a voucher for the next flight out, a gift card for the future, and a nights stay in a hotel. “We’re…
As someone that's taken these offers before I think you're making a lot of assumptions. Yes there's some people on the plane with important business but on a plane with a 100+ people it's exceedingly likely there's also people casually travelling. $500+ in airline credit to move their flight to the morning is a real deal. Personally I'd rather be in this system and pay lower airfare prices than pay a premium to guara…
Re: Do countries get the list of every passenger that's transiting their airspace?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Within the EU, flights rarely get overbooked. Especially on cheap flights like with Ryanair, the reimbursement that the airline has to provide in case of overbooking can easily be more than 10x the ticket value.
The cultural difference between the US and Europe is very interesting. In the US, when a flight is overbooked, the airline is allowed to bump anyone if they provide good enough compensation. Usually what happens is the airline “auctions” being bumped where they keep upping the “benefit” for staying. Usually that’s just a voucher for the next flight out, a gift card for the future, and a nights stay in a hotel. “We’re…
They give big discounts to people who book early and make their planning process easier.
In theory this makes the need for overbooking less necessary. If you don’t show up you’re not getting your money back anyway and the plane will use less fuel on its flight.
This from the airline that wanted to charge people for using the toilets. If overbooking was a better model I’m pretty sure they’d use it.
Re: Do countries get the list of every passenger that's transiting their airspace?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia provides passports for Belarussian agents?
Yeah they apparently had Russian passports and the full support of the Russian state. Maria Zakharova even wrote that “It is shocking that the West calls the incident in Belarusian airspace ‘shocking,’”. She is the Director of the Press Department for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is famous for claiming things as ludicrous as this one… https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/konstantinbenyumov/mari...