The number of people who deal with the boarding check is increasing. Without a ticket you get to the security area. Zurich Airport seems particularly affected. A security risk?
In June 2024, a woman at Zurich Airport made it to the plane without a ticket. She surrounded the boarding check by “quickly passing the counter when the employee in question had briefly turned away from the passage of the boarding of the boarding of the boarding.” During the gate, the woman surrounded again and thus reached Amsterdam on board an aircraft.
In view of the high safety precautions at the airport, this sounds adventurous, but is in a criminal notice that SRF was able to invest in investigative. The Federal Office for Civil Aviation (BAZL) legally condemned the woman to a bus of CHF 500 for “unauthorized entering the security area”.
An employee reads the boarding pass on the gate and checks a pass. The woman mentioned in the criminal notice could happen uncontrollably here.
Keystone / Gaetan Bally
In the survey by the police, she said that she actually wanted to fly. But it didn’t get that far. Bettina Kunz, media spokeswoman for Zurich AG Airport, says: «In this plane, the people were counted in this plane and if the so -called headcount, i.e. counting the heads, does not match the papers, it is checked whether there are too many passengers on board. That was the case here. »
No isolated case
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Despite the arrest, the Zurich native tried again a few weeks later. This time she wanted to visit friends in Barcelona according to the criminal notice. She stood close behind a person with a valid boarding pass and passed the lock with this. Exactly the same was done by a man who, according to the penalty order, put out to protect: “He wanted to do an experiment and test whether it was as easy when flying as it is to do this without a ticket.”
In general, incidents with passengers would increase and they would also be better discovered thanks to sensors and cameras, said Bettina Kunz from Zurich Airport.
More cases at Zurich Airport
When people enter the security area unauthorized, the airports have had to inform the Bazl since 2018. The authority is responsible for law enforcement.
The evaluation of the criminal notices by SRF shows investigative: Especially at Zurich Airport, the number of people who avoid the boarding check is increasing. In 2023, Zurich Airport recorded a case, in 2024 four and this year, was already four.
Question about the security risk
Are the cases safety -relevant? Not for Zurich Airport. Because a distinction is made between the boarding check control and the security check. The boarding check is upstream and takes place at the gate. In the case of security control, on the other hand, luggage and people would be checked for safety and this could hardly be avoided.
People and luggage are checked for safety at security control.
Keystone / Gaetan Bally
«People came far without a boarding pass, but they were checked for safety. The cases concern us, however, but they can be seen in relation. Last year almost eleven million local passengers flew from Zurich, »said Bettina Kunz. As far as is known, no one has ever flew without a ticket from Zurich.
There are cases abroad in which people could withdraw without a ticket. Last year, a man without a ticket from Munich to Sweden and a woman from New York flew to Paris. The latter had to answer for this week in the United States in court.
