Schengen Flight Statistics

Interesting statistics, Frank.

As a side note, the continual miscommunication about the breadth of the latest travel restrictions is really bugging me. As I'm typing, I'm listening to yet another news report referencing, "Europe with the exception of the UK." I understand that much of this has come from the original, confusing and incorrect announcement by the White House (no politicizing of the issue here; I heard it firsthand and think both speechwriter and reader should be fired.) I also understand that most are unlikely to read the formal text of the proclamation on the DHS website that confines the latest restrictions to "all aliens" coming from a Schengen country within 14 days of attempted entry, not ALL aliens from ALL of Europe, those from the UK + some other specified non U.S. nationals excepted.

Aside from missing a valuable educational opportunity here, it's just reinforcing those originally and erroneously stated "facts" and exacerbating public confusion.

OK, I'll get over it but really?

No Kathy, you got it right. "Europe except for the UK" is a misleading statement as it is Europe except for the UK and a dozen other countries, also not in the Schengen Area. They did a miserable job of communicating it and so far a miserable job of publicizing the rules in practice.

Agree Kathy. Because I'm due to fly to Atlanta at the beginning of April (on present plans) from London, where I live, I read the rules carefully.

In my Italian class yesterday morning, made up of various nationalities, there was a lot of confusion. As my class all live in London, a non-Schengen area, we are all currently able to travel to the US - on current rules. This means that eg a Frenchman living in London is fine, but a Scot living in Paris is not.

But if I have misunderstood, please help ……..!

I doubt that this is any clearer to the people in the airports who are actually attempting to enforce this, so individual experiences will vary. Even before all this, security measures varied greatly depending on the person wearing the badge. I don't have an expectation that there will be a set of rules everyone will follow. As with any airport security protocols: Be honest, be prepared, expect the worst.

Yep, the way I read it, you have that exactly right, Katy. As long as the Frenchman hadn't been back to visit France (or other Schengen country) within 14 days of flying from London, he's OK. Not so for the unfortunate Scot flying directly from Paris.

Editing to add: regardless of the above, the amount of scrutiny one might anticipate from the Powers That Be might depend on country of citizenship.

This is exactly what happens when you throw out policy without consultation of anyone. Not your advisors, airline execs, foreign governments, etc. What exactly will the ban accomplish? Absolutely nothing, The virus is here and it is growing. Given how little testing is occurring in the US, the ban should be on US citizens traveling. This is not bold action but just a show that is only going to get worse.

thanks Kathy. Good to have some reassurance. But, today's UK numbers of new infected have just been announced and, not unexpectedly, they are going up. So I expect that the UK (and probably Ireland too) will soon be joining the Schengen countries.

Frank, from here the perspective of the US is - you're in an election year - so politicians need to show they're doing something. Currently, in the UK some are screaming at Boris because he is perceived as not doing anything (much) - he is listening to and doing what the scientific advisers are advising. But we are doing a lot more testing than in the US, and this is now being ramped up further and the virus has been designated a notifiable illness with all the contact tracing that entails.

Frank, I think that horse left the barn a long time ago as well.

The flight situation is truly ugly. We're scheduled to fly to Berlin thru LHR next week. But our return leg from Berlin has been cancelled. And with a 70 year old wife with a history of pneumonia, we cannot take the risk of her catching any virus.
We have cancelled our hotel reservations and our rental car. Some of the room cancellations are going to cost us substantially, but we just accept it as part of budget travel. We roll with the flow.
The problem is getting through to the travel agency that booked our flight (Cheap O Air). Their phones are clogged up, and they're swamped with customer request emails. They're talking first to customers with flights starting in 3 days. The airlines are not taking cancellations or rescheduling directly. This situation is TO BE CONTINUED!

Editing to add: regardless of the above, the amount of scrutiny one
might anticipate from the Powers That Be might depend on country of
citizenship.

Kathy, yes, a Swiss citizen landing at ORD on a flight from Istanbul, who says he hasn't been in the EU in 14 days would probably deserve a little more scrutiny. I assume that's what you meant.

We have 2 (at least) known cases of the virus via community spread. Our state health department states that this predicts that 1% of our state population is carrying the virus, or 100,000 people.
I think most of us would agree that Trump isn't capable of making a proper decision based on the needs of Americans (only based on his needs), but where are the party leaders? I could understand putting a stop to all leisure travel and only letting Americans come home from where they are and only letting visitors here return to their homes, but I can see no logic in the current ban.

...a Swiss citizen landing at ORD on a flight from Istanbul, who says
he hasn't been in the EU in 14 days would probably deserve a little
more scrutiny. I assume that's what you meant.

LOL. Essentially, yes, James, except that if I was that Swiss National, I wouldn't use the term "EU" 'cause it could further confuse the issue. I would state that I hadn't been in the Schengen if that was true. Me and thee know that Turkey is neither Schengen nor EU but the individual doing the checking may not? But you're right, that traveler might expect a bit more grilling.

And if I, a British citizen living in Switzerland, take a train tomorrow to London. And then a few days later fly from Heathrow to the US, how would anybody at the arrival airport in the US know where I had been?
Nothing in may passport says where I live, and no stamps for Europeans travelling within Europe.
Are they asking for declarations of all countries visited in the last 14 days?

I'm not sure what Frank's point is. Airlines are organized nationally USA has more than twice as many people as any EU county, Germany being the biggest, so it is absolutely the way it should be that the top 2 airlines are USA & # 3 is German. So what?

I thought some people might be interested to see the make up of flights between the U.S. and Schengen in light of the ban.

If you're not interested, move on.

Thanks Frank — this is interesting (and depressing). Thank you for pulling this together and posting it.

Are they asking for declarations of all countries visited in the last
14 days?

Great question, Chris. I guess we'll have to see how it works once the thing gets up and running? Or, dare I say, IF it gets up and running? Hopefully we'll see some reports from incoming travelers within the next day or so. My own city's airport (MSP) unfortunately isn't one of the designated 13 so some of our local folks will be making previously unscheduled stops enroute. No fun.

They know where you've been.

When I went through my Global Entry renewal interview, I was asked where I had been and the immigration agent interviewing me asked about places I had been where there was no crossing the border just a flight. As an example, he asked me a my trip to Jersey. I arrived there on a flight from London. But he knew about it.

Well, I was still scratching my head over Chris' question but guess it's a moot issue now.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-closes-national-borders-apple-stores-11584183924

Trump Says U.S. Considering Domestic Restrictions, Expands Europe Travel Ban to U.K. and Ireland

President Trump said travel restrictions from Europe would be
broadened to include the U.K. and Ireland, as countries across the
globe are taking more aggressive measures to slow the spread of the
coronavirus pandemic and combat the economic damage.

The rest of the article is subscription blocked but it goes on to say he didn't have specifics about what was being considered for domestic-travel restrictions. Frank, I see that you posted similar to this forum a short time ago.

Yikes. We're watching footage of the chaos at O'hare. The whole thing is a prime example of what people are being told NOT to do: stand for hours, shoulder-to-shoulder, in a huge crowd of people. To make things worse, all of those people have been traveling abroad.

What a giant cluster....youknowwhat. Fail, fail, fail.

https://wgntv.com/news/coronavirus/photos-long-lines-greet-passengers-at-ohare-during-travel-ban/