What's the use of APIS?
What's the use of APIS?
Of course, I understand why APIS was introduced in the wake of 9/11 but a recent incident in EDI made me wonder if it could be better.
Me - UK citizen; Mrs Farci US citizen with permanent residence in UK for the past ten years. Both of us checked in online some weeks ago for an EDI-KEF flight and filed the APIS data with easyJet. At boarding my wife's passport triggered an alarm since Iceland requires passport validity of three months beyond the trip. Pleading from us that her passport expires in two months + 19 days and that the trip duration was only two days fell on deaf ears. easyJet claimed to have phoned Reykjavik immigration who confirmed she would be refused entry. She was denied boarding and I chose not to travel in the interests of living a long and happy married life
.
I am sure that buried in easyJet T&Cs there is a clause stating that pax are responsible for valid documentation. It never occurred to check Iceland immigration requirements - it's an EEA country in Schengen and as a UK permanent resident she has never been refused entry in similar jurisdictions.
If we submit APIS data weeks ahead, which includes passport expiry date, should this not have triggered an error so that the airline could alert us to the problem?
Me - UK citizen; Mrs Farci US citizen with permanent residence in UK for the past ten years. Both of us checked in online some weeks ago for an EDI-KEF flight and filed the APIS data with easyJet. At boarding my wife's passport triggered an alarm since Iceland requires passport validity of three months beyond the trip. Pleading from us that her passport expires in two months + 19 days and that the trip duration was only two days fell on deaf ears. easyJet claimed to have phoned Reykjavik immigration who confirmed she would be refused entry. She was denied boarding and I chose not to travel in the interests of living a long and happy married life
.I am sure that buried in easyJet T&Cs there is a clause stating that pax are responsible for valid documentation. It never occurred to check Iceland immigration requirements - it's an EEA country in Schengen and as a UK permanent resident she has never been refused entry in similar jurisdictions.
If we submit APIS data weeks ahead, which includes passport expiry date, should this not have triggered an error so that the airline could alert us to the problem?
Paxing All Over The World
Ouch, very unpleasant.
My GUESS is that the APIS data is only activated as the flight is closing - so as to have the maximum amount of information in the file. Companies and govts tend not to do things in advance to make things easier for the customer/citizen.
My GUESS is that the APIS data is only activated as the flight is closing - so as to have the maximum amount of information in the file. Companies and govts tend not to do things in advance to make things easier for the customer/citizen.
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farci,
The harsh reality is that documentation is and shall remain the passenger's problem. It would also require substantial amounts of new business-logic to be implemented on their customer-facing systems. Plus you would be faced with a situation where those passengers with a few missing brain cells would assume that because the airline says its OK, you'll have no problems ....
The fact is that documentation is a battle you can't win either way and you're at the mercy of the system at all times.
At one end there are cases like yours where documents are obviously invalid. Something that you'll have to take on the chin, lesson learnt the hard way.
At the other end, you have cases like a colleague of mine who travelled to Israel, she checked expiry validity requirements, found her passport didn't meet them, went through the process of getting a new passport, entry into Israel was not a problem, but on departure from Israel, pre-screening took issue with her fancy new passport and subjected her to the whole nine-yards (questioning, bag search etc). She is of a pristinely clean background, the only flag the Israelis went by was her brand new passport that was renewed only a few weeks before her departure to Israel.
And then there are the whole variety of scenarios in-between.
So, as I said... you can't win, all you can do is check compliance with documentation requirements, resolve issues and then hope for the best !
The harsh reality is that documentation is and shall remain the passenger's problem. It would also require substantial amounts of new business-logic to be implemented on their customer-facing systems. Plus you would be faced with a situation where those passengers with a few missing brain cells would assume that because the airline says its OK, you'll have no problems ....
The fact is that documentation is a battle you can't win either way and you're at the mercy of the system at all times.
At one end there are cases like yours where documents are obviously invalid. Something that you'll have to take on the chin, lesson learnt the hard way.
At the other end, you have cases like a colleague of mine who travelled to Israel, she checked expiry validity requirements, found her passport didn't meet them, went through the process of getting a new passport, entry into Israel was not a problem, but on departure from Israel, pre-screening took issue with her fancy new passport and subjected her to the whole nine-yards (questioning, bag search etc). She is of a pristinely clean background, the only flag the Israelis went by was her brand new passport that was renewed only a few weeks before her departure to Israel.
And then there are the whole variety of scenarios in-between.
So, as I said... you can't win, all you can do is check compliance with documentation requirements, resolve issues and then hope for the best !
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Uk permanent residency just allows her to live in the UK. Has no other effect for other countries in Europe. To them she is a US passport holder and needs everything someone living in Miami might need. Permanent residency ( or indefinite leave to remain to be exact )is only valid for that country
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Farci, If the UK was part of Schengen you likely would not have had this problem, as there would not have been any arrival controls. (Although the waiver of the 3 month validity rule is only valid for citizens of the EU/EFTA countries). The only time my non-EU passport is looked at is when I fly to/from a non-Schengen country.
The data is for transmission to the governments, and data protection laws limit how airlines can use it. (They cannot even keep it in their systems for future trips without your specific agreement). Of course every country's laws are different - the US doesn't care, the EU cares deeply). The requirements of each governments requirement are very (as in very, very) complex and cannot really be encoded into a system that can be checked against. For example some countries visa-free period varies based on the purpose of the trip (business vs. pleasure).
It would certainly be nice if governments used the data sent to them as a 'pre-check' to expedite the actual arrival process but many (most, all, ??) do not.
My wife and I have different passports. I always check when travelling to a new country. For example, who would have thought that Northern Cyprus' immigration is governed by Turkish rules (which require a 6 month validity for non-EU nationals).
The data is for transmission to the governments, and data protection laws limit how airlines can use it. (They cannot even keep it in their systems for future trips without your specific agreement). Of course every country's laws are different - the US doesn't care, the EU cares deeply). The requirements of each governments requirement are very (as in very, very) complex and cannot really be encoded into a system that can be checked against. For example some countries visa-free period varies based on the purpose of the trip (business vs. pleasure).
It would certainly be nice if governments used the data sent to them as a 'pre-check' to expedite the actual arrival process but many (most, all, ??) do not.
My wife and I have different passports. I always check when travelling to a new country. For example, who would have thought that Northern Cyprus' immigration is governed by Turkish rules (which require a 6 month validity for non-EU nationals).
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APIS is there so the information can be passed on to the arrival/transit country, it doesn't serve as a way of the airline reservation system alerting you to the entry requirements.
There are so many combinations of passports, visas, residency cards, special cases (I've seen some countries allow visa free entry to certain passports provided they were flying on certain airlines) a person could have, it would be impossible for a computer system to simply say yes or no to everyone, which is why a document check takes place at check in and agents make use of TIMATIC. Even TIMATIC can be confusing or misleading so more often than not the best thing to do is for the airline to call the people at the other end and let them make a decision. This is what happened in your case.
Do you have reason to believe they didn't call KEF and simply denied you? I doubt the groundstaff would do that to be honest.
It's a situation I saw countless times when I was a check in agent. The final decision rested with immigration at the other end. I'm sorry to say that US passport holders were among the most frequent people we had to deny travel to because they didn't meet the entry requirements of the destination. I saw plenty of people (US and otherwise) being turned away for even just a day trip because of the validity problem.
It's not so much that your pleading fell on deaf ears, but they were simply denied, by Iceland, from letting your wife board their plane. An airline faces a huge fine, mandatory carriage of the person back to the origin (which could be at the expense of another confirmed passenger being offloaded to make space and any time in between landing and removal will usually see the passenger detained or if they are allowed in they won't get their intended time in the country) and, in extreme cases where they become a persistent offender, and airline can lose the right to fly to the destination, although if that's actually ever happened, I don't know.
There are so many combinations of passports, visas, residency cards, special cases (I've seen some countries allow visa free entry to certain passports provided they were flying on certain airlines) a person could have, it would be impossible for a computer system to simply say yes or no to everyone, which is why a document check takes place at check in and agents make use of TIMATIC. Even TIMATIC can be confusing or misleading so more often than not the best thing to do is for the airline to call the people at the other end and let them make a decision. This is what happened in your case.
Do you have reason to believe they didn't call KEF and simply denied you? I doubt the groundstaff would do that to be honest.
It's a situation I saw countless times when I was a check in agent. The final decision rested with immigration at the other end. I'm sorry to say that US passport holders were among the most frequent people we had to deny travel to because they didn't meet the entry requirements of the destination. I saw plenty of people (US and otherwise) being turned away for even just a day trip because of the validity problem.
It's not so much that your pleading fell on deaf ears, but they were simply denied, by Iceland, from letting your wife board their plane. An airline faces a huge fine, mandatory carriage of the person back to the origin (which could be at the expense of another confirmed passenger being offloaded to make space and any time in between landing and removal will usually see the passenger detained or if they are allowed in they won't get their intended time in the country) and, in extreme cases where they become a persistent offender, and airline can lose the right to fly to the destination, although if that's actually ever happened, I don't know.
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I always check when travelling to a new country. For example, who would have thought that Northern Cyprus' immigration is governed by Turkish rules (which require a 6 month validity for non-EU nationals).
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We crossed the frontier by land, so the airline taking us to Cyprus (the other one) would have had no reason to have checked the validity of my passport. However I did check and found that my passport would only be valid four months after my trip. No issue getting a new passport issued either, seems it happens all the time.
The point I was trying to make is assumptions can be dangerous, and rules do change. With the Internet it takes two minutes to check. Of course 'your mileage will vary'.
For example, if you are an American travelling to Venezuela you now need a visa. You didn't last week.
The point I was trying to make is assumptions can be dangerous, and rules do change. With the Internet it takes two minutes to check. Of course 'your mileage will vary'.
For example, if you are an American travelling to Venezuela you now need a visa. You didn't last week.
