Travelling from India to US via Schengen or UK

score:2

Accepted answer

At this time, you will not be able to take this itinerary and enter the US. Your Indian citizenship and F-1 visa are acceptable for travel and entry, and you would be permitted to transit at CDG without a transit visa if you present an onward ticket that leaves within 24 hours of your arrival at CDG and you stay in the CDG transit area.

However, the airline will deny you boarding for the flight to ATL. This is because you will have transited in France (or the UK, if that were permitted by the UK - I didn't check) within 14 days of when you would present yourself to US immigration at ATL.

As of December 14, 2020, the KoreanAir Timatic portal returns this information:

  • Passengers are not allowed to enter and transit [the United States] if in the past 14 days they have been to or transited through Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China (People's Rep.), Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Iran, Ireland (Rep.), Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.

Thus, to enter the US, you'll either have to a) arrive directly by air in the US from a country not listed, without having entered or transited at one of the listed countries, or b) after transiting or entering a listed country, then stay in a non-listed country for at least 14 days. After 14 days, you can fly to the US provided you haven't (again) transited via or entered a listed country.

This is a rapidly-changing field. The rules can and are changed with little or no advance notice. The US is currently undergoing a fraught political change of administration. Anything can happen.

Thus, this answer may well be incorrect tomorrow, or next week, or next month. That includes the possibility that the requirements for entry to the US might become even more restrictive.

EDIT: mlc points out in Comments that IATA's Covid Page shows an exception for F-1 visa holders which allows them entry even if they've been in a listed country within the last 14 days. This same exemption is echoed in the more-complete IATA Travel Center info page.

I conclude that my answer above is incorrect, and that the OP can indeed fly to the US on this itinerary.

My comments about the unpredictability of rules changes remain valid.

Upvote:2

For LHR, assuming you are taking BA, BA will not let you board from India since they would allow Indian nationals to travel only to the UK, Ireland or Cayman. Check this. Go to the section titled 'Outbound flights from India:' under 'India'

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