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I have a query regarding transit visa. I am a student at the Indian Institute of Technology in Jodhpur, India.

I am going to visit Switzerland during this summer as a student trainee. I got my visa clear with starting date 11th May 2015, but my flight is on 10th May 2015 from Mumbai and it will reach to Zurich on 10th May at 22:00. So I just want to know that is it possible to travel with that visa as it has starting date 11th May 2015 or do I need some transit visa to stay on Zurich airport for two hours or I can't travel at all on 10th May?

Please reply to this thread as soon as possible so that I can decide accordingly.

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    I must congratulate you -- in some ways this is the best visa question I ever saw. It highlights the absurdity of the whole thing. It's not impossible the airline won't allow you on the plane but if it has a mechanical problem and is late by two hours it will.
    – user4188
    Commented Apr 15, 2015 at 16:15
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    @pnuts you should move that to an answer; then I will delete this comment too.
    – user4188
    Commented Apr 15, 2015 at 16:23

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We recently had a question about a transit hotel in Zurich airport. So you should be able to sleep in that hotel before crossing the border and then, in the morning, go cross the border and enter the Schengen area.

However, as @pnuts commented, the issue might be on the airline side. To be honest, I am not familiar with this kind of issue (that may sound ridiculous that an airline would bother you because of a 2-hour delay), but it may happen, since technically you should have a valid visa to enter Schengen or to transit (if you are an Indian citizen, you don't need a transit visa), but in your case you transit to ... the Schengen area.

I would follow the comment of pnuts, i.e. you may ask the airline. The problem as raised in the comments is that this is not an authoritative answer but as far as know, the airline has an arbitrary power to refuse you on a flight if the staff believes you do not have the right travel documents.

So my suggestion would be to contact the airline and when you come to the airport, you bring as many papers as possible to prove to the airline you won't have any issue: any mail/email exchanged with the airline staff, the hotel reservation for the Zurich transit hotel, your visa, and any other document you find useful. Still, don't forget that the airline has an arbitrary power to refuse you.

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