South African Regulations
 

To those who are familiar with the this destination:
I am trying to find if the SA govt has a restriction of minimum months to expiry of passport?

After two visits to their UK website, the only reference to regulations of entry is for C19. I download an 84 page document and searched for passport and there were six references. All were the same statement containing the word twice and included in three different paragraphs.

We are booked for end of March and I need to know whether to renew my partners passport - as it will be just a week under six months validity at departure.
Thanks.

Its not worth the risk - if you can't find it the average Immigration Officer is likely to be in a fog as well. I'd get a new one anyway

Agree with Asturias56. My wife was detained at CPT in 2020 (departing to UK) because the immigration officials could not reconcile the expiry of her Retirement Visa.

"This is a four year visa, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019. It is expired so we have to deport you". It took an uncomfortable hour, the eventual arrival of the Head of Immigration and a phone call from our pit bull immigration lawyer to convince the said chap and chapesses that years are actually 2016-2017, 2017-2018....well you get it. Luckily BA58 was late as usual so she didn't miss her flight!

Get it renewed as its simply not worth a squeaky moment at immigration.

Thanks guys. Sounds sensible. I understand the 6 month rule but I resent thr 9.5 yr validity. Does anyone know what the postal delay is right now?

We would have done this in November but were due to go away in Dec. That got postponed to Feb and has now had to be delayed further for various reasons. So we may have to use the one day service.

Paxboy
Mrs Mac,s Passport is currently away for renewal, and she told me in a phone call that typically it is 2-3 weeks at the moment, so she will not be in coming over, hence me coming back to UK this week. Not sure where she got that info from though.
Cheers
Mr Mac

Paxboy
Just had a phone call from Mrs Mac advising that her Passport will be a further 6 weeks so looking at 9 - 10 weeks from being sent off. That is quite a delay, and that would be the Liverpool office.

Cheers
Mr Mac

A UK passport renewal from BKK took 12 weeks despite what them stated!

Thanks ZFT. Just last night I was looking at the prices and options. Currently, they say they have a four week turnaround but we have only just over six weeks in hand. I see they have a medium fast and the one day. So I think we are going for the medium one.

Paxboy
Mrs Mac has advised that her new Black or Blue Passport has arrived today so she will be able to travel over here 🙂🙂🙂
Cheers
Mac

Renewing my partners passport at short notice came about as we were due to go to Iceland in February and then not enough time to renew before going away in March. Then we had to postpone Iceland due to her back playing up (a slip disc problem and Doctor said No) Looking up passport renewal we found:

1. Standard postal service. Currently reported at 3-4 weeks BUT the small print says 'up to 10 weeks'. That probably would not happen but they give themselves a get out.
2. Via the Post-Office pre-check but takes a little longer.
3. New One-Week service on trial, apply on line.
4. Premium One Day service, apply on line.

Obviously the price escalates. We decided on the mid-price one week. It's only once you get through most of the online form and get to making the appointment that they say, the 'one-week' starts from the day of your appointment. We had read this as being that you apply on line, attend the appointment a week later and collect. If we chose this option, due to the dates when we could go into the London passport office, the delivery date would then be perilously close to our departure date.

Premium cost it is.

Rather than start another thread: Anyone going to South Africa in the next months: 'Comair fleet grounded indefinitley' which obviously includes Kalula.

I'm sure that Safair and AirLink will increase rotations to their maximum capacity but prices and availability will be through the roof. Happily, we are booked on Safair for internals.

There is a thread in African Aviation.

Thanks Pax, it didn’t occur to me to copy over to this area. 👍

That's OK, Helol, you posted in the correct forum. PAXboy is one of our more enthusiastic members of the Cabin.
:D

I too am hoping to visit South Africa. Reading the regulations seems to indicate that each passenger must carry a smartphone in order to download their Covid app..
Is my understanding correct ?

I was there for nearly 4 weeks back in January, and never downloaded anything. Upon arrival, they checked my Covid Pass as I was waiting at passport control, and took collected the Health Declaration Form. That was it.

Upon departure, they appeared to be very happy I had a 'green tick' on my BA |VeriFly app! (Meaning i had uploaded the required docs)
I still have a Virgin Atlantic voucher to use for LHR-JNB, so it will be interesting to experience arrival/dep without the VeriFly app. Hopefully, their PCR requirement will have gone away by then!

I was a little concerned prior to flying to SA, with all I had read etc, but to be honest, it just wasn't a big deal at all.

Asof today, 23rd March 2022, the ZA gov has removed the need for PCT requirments effective from today. No we have to see if BA have their systems up to date when we come to check in. Ny brother is at T5 now to go to JNB and I have asked them to ask all and any BA person they see - if they know the regs have changed! On the BA website it looks OK but if the check in system and/or agent does not agree = no move.

Whilst BA website confirms that the entry rules for ZA have changed - they haven't changed the check-in sequence which still wants PCR documents. So will just have to go T5 extra early.

I thought the call centre would be difficult to get through to but their standard message was how they were 'prioritising those who needed help urgently'. Naturally they refered everyone to the web site and then dumped the call. So they want to help those travelling soon but don't want to actually speak to them.

As you know, the website 'help' is a bot that cannot do anything.

The site suggests that you Tweet them but that also connects you to a Bot. I am not surprised.

people cost money - look at P&O to see how that works out....................

Indeed. It is what old companies do when the Board place themselves before the customer. Happens all the time.

In the end, BA did reply through Twitter and were helpful.

When we arrived at T5, the agent asked for VeriFLY and we said that the regulations had changed. She made a phone call and confirmed and accepted us with NHS proof of full vaccination. the lady was very tired as she had started her shift in the terminal at 07:00 and it was now 18:15. But, as I have usually found with BA agents, very helpful and efficient.