Proceedings against air carriers
Duty of care
Air carriers are obliged to certain duties of care when transporting passengers to the Schengen Area. They must take all reasonable measures to ensure that they only transport persons who possess the required travel documents, visas and/or residence documents to enter the Schengen zone (Art. 92 para. 1 of the Federal Act on Foreign Nationals; Foreign Nationals Act).
-
Foreign Nationals Act (FNA)
(SR 142.20)
(please note that English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force).
Travel Document |
Visa |
Residence document |
|
Recognised? |
X |
||
Valid? |
X |
X |
X |
Genuine? |
X |
X |
X |
Lawful holder? |
X |
X |
X |
Any air carrier that violates its duty of care shall be required to pay CHF 4000 for each person carried who is not in possession of the required documents. In serious cases, the penalty rises to CHF 16 000 per person (Art. 122a FNA).
The following table shows the requirements that the aforementioned documents must satisfy:
Duty to provide data
The State Secretariat for Migration SEM may require air carriers to provide personal data on the passengers it is carrying, and data on the flight, to the SEM or to the border control authorities. This type of data is known as Advance Passenger Information, API (Art. 104 para. 1 FNA).
Air carriers shall be required to pay CHF 4000 for each flight for which it violates its duty to provide data. In serious cases, the penalty is CHF 12 000 per flight (Art. 122b FNA).
The SEM will conduct any sanction proceedings (Art. 122c FNA).
Contact details
Questions may be sent to one of the following addresses:
State Secretariat for Migration SEM
Entry Division
Borders Section
Quellenweg 6
CH-3003 Bern-Wabern
Concerning the duty of care: sektion-grenze@sem.admin.ch
Concerning the duty to provide data: api-info@sem.admin.ch
Last modification 07.12.2015