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Apparently:

Does an Indian need a visa to transfer from Paris ORY to Paris CDG?

is not a duplicate of:

Do I need a visa to transit (or layover) in the Schengen area?

(I was one of five who voted to close on that basis.)

Transfer between two major airports serving the same city arises not only for Paris and since of relevance to many travellers might perhaps justify being considered a 'special case'.

However the underlying issue is that to escape ORY (even to a different terminal at the same airport) Immigration must be crossed. Landside requires a Schengen visa (for those requiring a visa) and hence the destination is of no relevance for the issue.

Is two different specific destinations enough to rule out deemed 'duplication' or is ORY>CDG a special (not necessarily unique) case?

For example:

Does an Indian need a visa to transfer from Paris ORY to Paris LBG?
Does an Indian need a visa to transfer from Paris ORY to 8 Place de la Concorde, Paris?
Does an Indian need a visa to transfer from Paris ORY to 6 Place de la Concorde, Paris?

There is a lot about what does/does not/should constitutes a duplicate here but my question is restricted to consideration only of destinations for visa purposes and assumes an answer (to at least one of the Qs) of a general nature, such as @Relaxed's, which includes a section:

Can you transfer without leaving the international area of the airport?

(Where, for example, specific nationality is not relevant either.)

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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All we need is a canonical on transfers during transit, so I've simply changed the title of the existing question to Does one need a visa to transfer between two airports during a transit through the Schengen area?

Now any similar questions can either go to the master question (general transit situation) or the sub-canonical (transfer during transit).

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There is a tiny issue which makes the two questions slightly different. But that tiny issue does not mean that each of your suggestions would be a valid question, too.

The Question ‘Do I need a visa to transit (or layover) in the Schengen area?’ is rather short and sweet.

I found many related questions on this site but I am still not sure about the rules. How can I decide if I need a visa to transit?

From the way both the title and the question are worded, it seems very much okay to ask (and answer) this based on:

Do I need a transit visa if my itinerary is DME–CDG–JFK?

I.e. that it concerns cases where you arrive and leave the Schengen area via a single airport. This is the usual way that transit (or layover) is understood as far as I know.

The question you are referring to is slightly different in that a change of airports is required. The initerary could have been DME–ORY–CDG–JFK.

As was commented and answered, you have to use ground transport to get from one to the other. That, in my eyes, makes it sufficiently different from a simple transit/layover question which is what the other seems to be asking. Thus, a question of that kind should serve as a different canonical dupe target — however, it can serve as a dupe target for all such itineraries, whether it is LHR to LGW, TXL to SXF, BWI to IAD, NRT to HND or any other combination of two physically different airports.

To be honest, I’m not sure if there shouldn’t be a third canonical dupe for questions concerning itineraries such as DME–FRA–CDG–JFK. These may be seen as two transits in the Schengen area by non-Schengen laymen, while it is actually very much like the ORY–CDG question (except that there are planes from one airport to the other).

However, this answer is based on the current situation. Instead of having a number of different canonical dupes, we can also edit our canonical dupe to explicitly cover all cases. IMHO, that should actually be the preferred path to take.

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  • @pnuts The Q needs clarification first, imho.
    – Jan
    Jan 15, 2017 at 21:02
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    @pnuts The OP is open to discussion in chat but the “clarification” seemed like a lengthy development on a side issue that might require a separate question. When an edit becomes so long and complicated it's becoming difficult to even follow what was changed. And as you note, it's not a wiki, I never intended for everybody to come and add stuff.
    – Relaxed
    Jan 17, 2017 at 22:42
  • @Jan I am completely confused by your answer. Both the change of airports within the same city and the “internal“ Schengen flight situations are covered in the canonical question (third paragraph of Q2). Maybe canonical questions are a bad idea all around (to be honest I created that one without enthusiasm because it seemed to be the direction consensus was going at the time) but if the criteria is whether the answer already covers the situation, then this one most definitely does. Where did you get the impression that any of this is about arriving and leaving Schengen visa a single airport?
    – Relaxed
    Jan 17, 2017 at 22:47
  • @Relaxed The canonical question does not cover anything. The canonical answer might, but duplicates are supposed to be the same or a similar question. The entire content of the canonical question is quoted above. That needs to be the first point of discussion.
    – Jan
    Jan 17, 2017 at 23:01
  • @Jan Well if questions don't cover anything why do you bring it up? You infer that the other question “seems” to be asking about something then you tell me it does not cover anything. What are we even talking about then?That Q&A covers all this and much more, it just does not make sense to single out the change of airport as making a difference in any way. Now regarding identical questions vs. adequate answers, I made that point many times. That's an objection to canonical questions in general and the reason why I am lukewarm about them. But your answer still doesn't make sense to me.
    – Relaxed
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:12
  • @Relaxed I’m saying that I cannot judge from the content ‘I found many related questions on this site but I am still not sure about the rules. How can I decide if I need a visa to transit?’ whether it covers a change of airport or not. In fact, I have strong difficulties judging whether a question that fits extremely well into a comment actually asks anything. The canonical question should first ask all the questions (in principle) that the answer is covering. Then we can re-decide whether the other question OP brought up is a dupe of the canonical one.
    – Jan
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:17
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    I am actually very much in favour of keeping canonical questions and answers but it should be evident from the canonical question itself (and not by looking at the answer) whether whatever is supposed to be a dupe is asked by that canonical question or not.
    – Jan
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:18
  • @Jan This is becoming absurd. That's exactly what this question does if you read it honestly. It's quite clear that the intent is to cover all cases of transit, with or without change of airports. Of course you can't tell if it's about one or the other, because the whole point of a canonical question is being about both (and a whole host of other things). So it's not explicitly about one or the other because it's canonical, just as it's not about a specific airport, a specific citizenship, etc. The more specific you make it, the less canonical it is, simple as that.
    – Relaxed
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:25
  • Incidentally, there is no way for someone who doesn't already know the rules and the answer to guess that the change of airport is the salient factor so it would be a silly to use as a criteria for keeping or closing a question or splitting them. One good thing about the canonical question is that it provides a guide for the readers to discover what matters, even if they did not know it beforehand. Ideally, you wonder about transit and visas in general, you read this and you think “aha, it matters that I switch from Orly to Roissy, I didn't realise that”.
    – Relaxed
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:31
  • @Relaxed Call it absurd if you wish but I read that line time and time again and I still cannot tell from it which cases it asks. Is there any reason why a canonical question can’t be e.g. ‘Do I need a visa if I change planes at one airport? Do I need one if I need to change airports, too? If one of my connections goes from Schengen to Schengen, do I need one?’
    – Jan
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:38
  • If I’m in the asker’s shoes, I would look at that question and think ‘No, that’s just about transit at a single airport. I’m changing airports, that makes a difference!’ Especially consider somebody who is not familiar with the SE model of providing comprehensive answers.
    – Jan
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:39
  • @Jan Of course, you cannot tell, I just told you why. But you are still happy to assume it's about a transit at a single airport. Now, can you tell or can you not? That's what makes no sense in this whole discussion.
    – Relaxed
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:53
  • @Relaxed Because it’s the simplest and easiest explanation. Occam’s razor. If I may guess, over 90 % of transits are those at a single airport.
    – Jan
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:54
  • To the broader question, it's silly to have a canonical question that reads “Do I need a visa if I change plane at one airport?" because it's not obvious why that would be a particularly salient fact, especially if you don't already know the answer. And why single that factor out? You could say the same about the airline (low-cost or not), the citizenship, the airport (Tegel, anyone?) and then the question is not canonical at all. If you follow that line of reasoning, you never close anything as a duplicate of a canonical question because canonical question must cover several cases.
    – Relaxed
    Jan 18, 2017 at 0:58
  • @Jan Yet I deliberately phrased the question to be broader. You just don't want to read honestly and to pretend it seems to be asking something more specific for the sake of making a point. That has very little to do with Occam's razor.
    – Relaxed
    Jan 18, 2017 at 1:00

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