I've seen a few comments/posts about this but the information still seems so unclear, so posting here for further (hopeful) help. I'm arriving in Geneva and enjoying a few days in town (never been!) before picking up a car and driving straight to Beaune/France three days later. I've made the reservation for Europcar in the Geneva Airport French Side - so my question is: is it possible to access the car rental pickup on the French Side without having landed on an airplane? I'm thinking I'll just take a cab in from downtown the morning of my pickup, but I'm open to suggestions.
Posted by
255 posts
Hi Alice, I have some groggy memories of an early morning flight in 2018 where we dropped our rental car off on the French side, proceeded into the airport where we “crossed the border “ into Switzerland and caught a flight to Edinburgh. In actuality the French side is just an extended wing jutting onto I don’t know, French soil. Crossing back over “the border” from the swiss side to the French side to access the French services, I think would be just as easy. Have your passports ready and you’ll breeze through.
I would suggest public transit from Geneva to the airport. I do recall the big hullabaloo of getting to the French side of the terminal in a car was going through the border crossing. I can’t imagine how much extra a taxi would cost to go through that to deliver you to the French side of the airport. Bon Chance!
Posted by
Wengen
1654 posts
You cannot cross between the Swiss and the French sectors unless you have a boarding pass for a flight. So accessing the French side car rentals is not possible from the terminal is you are arriving by ground transportation.
The only option is to take a taxi to the French sector, but that will have to do a long detour, as by road the French sector is only accessible from France. So that taxi needs to drive out to Ferney first, through the customs post, then make a U-turn and drive back via the customs road.
Its crazy and annoying, but all the consequence of some passage in the treaty between France and Switzerland that governs this binational airport.