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I have already booked my flight from Italy to the Netherlands through Ryanair. I'm staying in Italy legally and have a carta di soggiorno. However, after booking my flight, my wallet was stolen, which contains all my IDs except my passport. I filed a police report, and I'm trying to get a new residence card. However, I need to go to the Netherlands ASAP. Will Ryanair accept the police report and receipt of getting a new residence card from the post office?

UPDATE (17.07.2014)

Thanks for helping me out. BTW it's OK now. I went to our local CISL here in Florence, Italy, where they process your envelope for renewing your permesso di soggornio or carta di soggiorno (residence permit for foreigners) to be submitted to the post office. That's where you pay and get your postal receipt, and they make an appointment for you at the questura. Anyway, long story short, they processed a application for IMPROVISED residence permit which is good for 30 days to travel within the Schengen area, so all I have to do is go to the questura, bring my travel booking, the police report and copy of my passport. Now I can travel, and it's my first time to fly with Ryanair because I always use Transavia to go to Holland. =) Hope this helps for future persons who will have the same issue with lost or stolen residence permits...Just wish me luck that the questura will process my improvised residence permit immediately.

Nick Stauner
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erin
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3 Answers3

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Ryanair will not board you with only the postal receipt.

With Ryanair if you are not an EU citizen prior the boarding you need to go to the their visa check desk, there they will check your documents and apply a stamp on your boarding pass, without a valid document (visa or a residence permit) they will not put the stamp in your boarding pass, without this stamp it's not possible to enter the airplane.

The Italian ID card released to non-EU citizens is not valid to travel outside Italy, it's marked on the back with non valida per l'espatrio (meaning not valid to leave the country).

Guido Preite
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Airline/ground handling personnel will in any case look at your passport to check your ID (as all low cost carriers do in my experience) but I don't know whether they will go past the ID page and look for a visa (more often than not, they don't, in my experience but Ryanair does apparently, see Guido's answer).

Since the flight is an internal Schengen flight, the risk of being denied entry (and therefore of the airline being fined) is very small so that they don't need to check your status as thoroughly as they would, e.g. for a fly to the UK. In all likelihood, you won't have any interaction with the police either.

However, I didn't find the receipt of your application for a new residence card in the official EU database of valid travel documents so legally speaking I don't think it is valid (by contrast, similar documents from France are in this database).

Finally, if your citizenship allows you to enter the Schengen area without a visa, not having an entry stamp would technically be a problem but that's not something the airline would care about. Since you will not go through a Schengen external border, this shouldn't be an issue.

So all in all, it could work in practice but, depending on your citizenship, it does sound risky.

Relaxed
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Afaik there is no such thing as staying legally in Italy, there's only staying in the Schengen area legally. If you're legal in Italy, you should legal in The Netherlands (and most countries in between). Ryanair will check your ID, but since you've got your passport you should be fine. There is no border check so I don't see why other documents need to be checked. You'll probably get on the plain without any issues. If they don't let you board you still lost nothing, in the very worst case you end up explaining your situation to the police, but they will let you go since you're legal in Italy and therefore allowed to travel throughout the Schengen area.

Depending on the urgency you could also consider driving to NL by car, if you avoid Switzerland there will be no border checks and you'll get there without ever even showing your passport (been there, done that). Again, the worst thing to happen is having to explain your situation to the police. Outside of Italy it might take a while to check your legal status, but that should be all. Just don't loose your passport, don't panic and you'll be fine.

AVee
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