changing planes in Europe - some kind of transfer document necessary?
 

A few years ago I flew to Athens through Rome, and I had to find some kind of transfer counter (I can't remember what it was called) to get a piece of paper to get the next flight, even though I had a ticket. I am going to Madrid via Lisbon in a week -- will I have to do that again? What is the process called? (Sorry to be so vague!) Thanks!

I have transited intra-Europe many times and never had to do anything more than show my US Passport to gain entry into Europe. All of my connecting flights have been to other Schengen treaty zone cities/countries - which is essentially the same thing as a domestic US flight in terms of ID.

Unless Madrid is somehow different from other Schengen cities you'll simply deplane, go through immigration/passport control, then pass through secuirty to get to the flight to Lisbon, with boarding pass in hand.

These days all flights I take are with electronic tickets, so I only carry my ID and boarding pass. No ticket in hand anymore.

You may be referring to going to the airline transfer desk to obtain your boarding pass for the next flight. This will sometimes be required if you are not provided with all your boarding passes when you check in for the first flight. This can happen when you are traveling on one ticket on multiple airlines and the first airline cannot issue the boarding pass for the second airline.

You will have to pass immigration checks when you land at Lisbon as Spain & Portugal are part of Schengen and you will pass through at least one more security check.

So if you need a visa for Spain, it will be valid for Portugal as well as going from Portugal to Spain is effectively domestic flight

Agree. We've never needed anything more than passport, boarding pass (and ticket if it wasn't electronic). I'm inclined to think Kay's comments are probably what you ran into several years ago.

Kay2 -- that was it! I was on one airline arriving in Rome and on another going to Athens. The transfer desk was sort of hidden and completely chaotic once I found it. I barely had enough time to get to the flight. Not fun. I hope that I don't have to do it again. Thanks for refreshing my memory.

If both of your flights are on the same airline, then you shouldn't have to use the transfer desk. If partner, maybe. Sometimes they are chaotic because many people don't know what/why they have to go there; others have problems the transfer desk is trying to handle; the staff may be handling several different airlines, etc.

But it's not always so bad. I had to go to one in an Asian airport to receive boarding passes halfway through a 24-hr trip and was annoyed when I saw the seat numbers/letters on the passes were not what I had selected for our long haul in economy. The desk agent was apologetic for the change, but we did not pursue as were already tired. As we walked away from the desk I looked more closely, not just the letter but the number of the seat assignment--we were upgraded to business class.