A number of years ago I flew from Dublin to Basel, the third largest city in Switzerland.
After passing through passport control and collecting my bag, I looked at the sign for
the exit and I saw this.
The sign said that you could egress into 3 different countries; Switzerland, France and
Germany. In fact, though the city of Basel is in Switzerland, the airport for the city
is in France, but it also is still kind of Swiss. So what’s going on here?
Before discussing the airport, let’s briefly introduce the city of Basel. Basel is located
in the north of Switzerland in the canton of Basel-Stadt. The city is home to around
180,000 people with around 800,000 in its metro area.
Basel is located on the banks of the iconic River Rhine and it is here in the river where
the tripoint between Switzerland, France and Germany is found. You can visit the Dreiländereck
monument, which marks the exact spot where the three countries do not meet; the actual
tripoint is around 150 metres north-west of here.
Now let’s cross the border back into France to return to the airport. The airport is located
3.5km northwest of the city of Basel in the commune of Saint-Louis. The full name for
the airport is EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg, with these being the 3 cities which
it serves.
Mulhouse is a city and the capital in the Haut-Rhin department of France. Freiburg im
Breisgau is the 4th largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.
Even though the airport is located in France, it is jointly operated by two countries; France
and Switzerland. In fact, it is one of the only airports in the world to be jointly operated
by 2 nations.
The airport’s board of management has 8 members each from France and Switzerland as
well as 2 advisors from Germany because well, Germany is just over here.
Though on French soil, the airport is in the Swiss customs area and is connected to the
rest of Switzerland by the 2.5km Zollfreistrasse customs-free road which allows Swiss residents
to travel from the airport to the city without having to go through French border controls.
These different ways of exiting is what resulted in the different exit doors mentioned earlier.
The airport has three IATA codes. BSL represents Basel in Switzerland and MLH stands for Mulhouse
in France. The last code doesn’t represent Germany; EAP is a neutral code meaning EuroAirport.
These multiple codes sometimes cause confusion on websites when you’re trying to book a
flight.
To better tell the obscure story of the airport, let’s jump back in time to its foundation.
We’ll jump back to the 1930’s when France and Switzerland planned to construct a new
joint international airport. As the existing airfield at Birsfelden was too small, they
started looking for a new site. At first it was planned to build the airport on the border
itself to be a true international airport.
Then World War 2 happened and France couldn’t afford to build the airport anymore so the
French and Swiss came up with a deal. The airport would be built on French land but
construction would be paid for by the Swiss canton.
Construction began in 1946 and on the 4th of July 1949, the signing of the French-Swiss
Treaty solidified the international status of the airport by granting access to the airport
to both countries without any customs or other border restrictions.
Over the following decades, the runway and terminal buildings were extended multiple
times.
The airport building was still divided into 2 sections, French and Swiss. On Apple Maps,
the Swiss area is actually counted as part of Switzerland.
For many decades you would have needed to pass border control to pass from one side
to the other but after Switzerland joined the Schengen Area in 2008, free travel is
now allowed.
So what about security in the airport?
As the airport is on French soil, French laws apply. However, the Swiss authorities have
the right to enforce Swiss law in the Swiss section and customs road when it comes to
customs and policing.
However, French authorities are still allowed to carry out random checks in the Swiss area.
When it comes to immigration, there’s both Swiss and French customs agents meaning that
the passport stamp you get depends on whichever officer is serving you.
If you’re arriving from a non-Schengen country such as Ireland, keep in mind that you’ll
probably be waiting in a queue for a long time as there’s only 4 immigration desks
for hundreds of passengers at a time.
In 2019, the Euroairport served over 9 million passengers and served around 100 airports
in 30 different countries.
So that’s the story of EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg, the Swiss Airport inside
of France. It’s a unique case of cooperation between countries with France and Switzerland
sharing an airport… Wait, Geneva airport is also shared between France and Switzerland?
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