As well as the enforcement of the "open skies" agreement for routes to and from the USA, the EU’s air transport will see one more revolution on Sunday 30th March: no more checks at airport borders between the 9 states that joined the Schengen zone last December and the other 15 which were already members. The new members are: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary. According to the deputy president of the EU Commission, Jacques Barrot, "the abolition of checks at airport borders marks the end of a historical process: the suppression of internal borders between 24 EU states". The goals are two: easing the movements of the EU citizens without decreasing the checks for passengers’ security. So, from Sunday onwards, people will be able to travel from one country to another, not only by land and sea, but even in the sky, without having to queue or wait, except for the usual identity checks at check-in. The air frontiers have been abolished later than those by land or sea, which took place in December 2007, "so as to coincide with the six-monthly change in flight times".
