Customs & Immigration in Frankfurt?
 

Traveling from US to St. Petersburg via Frankfurt. Have taken this route past two years thru Frankfurt but destinations were both members of EU. Since Russia is not, will Customs & Immigration be a requirement in Frankfurt, and, if so, will bags have to be claimed and rechecked?

Carolyn in Texas

PRECISELY because St Pete is in the backwoods, you don't normally go through immigration in Frankfurt.

The norm in civilised countries is that you don't go through immigration if you're making an international to international connection. There are three exceptions to this:
- if you need for some reason to collect your bags, go through Customs and check in again. For instance, if you're using most European low-cost airlines for your onward connection
- if your onward connection is within the same Common Travel Area. Like Schengen in continental Europe, or the UK/Ireland common area. St Pete, being beyond the pale, isn't in any Common Travel Area
- if you're chaging planes in North America (like, for instance on a London-Houston-Guatemala flight). Which just makes my point about the differnce between civilisation and the outer darkness

Flanneruk,

Thanx for the info. I certainly do agree with your comment about civilized rules. I live in Dallas, and if I arrive from Europe, or anywhere else not in the USA, at Houston or Chicago or New York, as I'm sure you know, I must collect my luggage at port of entry, go through customs, etc., and recheck it. Often the next flight is a shuttle flight on the same airline but departing from a different terminal. I had that experience in Chicago last year, and it is not one I wish to repeat. I'm traveling on Lufthansa all the way this trip, so I'm hopeful. My outbound is through Chicago, but my return is Frankfurt direct to DFW.

Carolyn in Texas

You might, being from Texas, be interested to know that America's not universally uncivilsed in this respect.

If you arrive in the US on an international-to-international connection, you always have to go through US immigration. God knows why: airports that take international flying seriouisly don't do this, and are a damn sight better organised at stopping terrorism than airports in the US (when was the last bombing incident at Heathrow?)

But arrive at Miami on a One World westbound international-to-international flight and, even though you go through US immigration, you don't see your bags. Ditto on Air NZ at LAX if you're going LHR (or FRA)-LAX-AKL or vv.
I wonder if this is also true on westbound international-to-international One World flights at Houston or DFW?

US, Canada and China are among the few countries in the world that don't have landside transit.

You can call these places civilized or uncivilized, or whatever.

flanneruk - The MIA setup is unique. At DFW, IAH, and most US airports, all international arrival passengers have to claim luggage.

"Thanx for the info. I certainly do agree with your comment about civilized rules. I live in Dallas, and if I arrive from Europe, or anywhere else not in the USA, at Houston or Chicago or New York, as I'm sure you know, I must collect my luggage at port of entry, go through customs, etc., and recheck it"

It's not a matter of being "uncivilized", North America has different rules. However, yes it's more annoying here to have to go back through customs when changing international flights.

xxx