BA Cabin Crew and American Visas

[LLuke]

In my company there are some people with identical names of wanted people from the US blacklist. They've an extra remark on their crew visum stating sth like this is not the one wanted.

[Bramley]

"Ba do expect you to go in your own time and expense. The explanation is "we expect crew members to have the correct documentation to be able to work "

I can understand BA's business rationale - save money whichever way possible - but that seems unreasonable to me. What will happen when other countries introduce equally convoluted visa requirements?

You have my sympathy.

[manintheback]

and by the way, they want their tax from your wages when you fly over their land

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4271877.stm

[DryV1]

USA tax

I read the above and assumed it was a wind-up,then thought "it's from the BBC it must be true!".

Can you imagine the fun we could have filling in our tax forms for 10 different countries following a day return from UK to Cyprus?

I would like to think that the people in the IRS had more sense than to waste their time with a complete non-starter such as this.

[Bumz_Rush]

How long to get all the required visas

I might have missed the point but how can BA or any other company expect the crew to GUESS which visa they might need......Russian, Ukranian, Saudi, and many many other countries all require visas of some form.
Are the crews expected to read the roster and say...I might go tech on the flight to China so I must get visas for all countries that we overfly.

Come on BA, think in the real world.....

[LatviaCalling]

As a U.S. citizen living abroad there is a very long and complicated form to be filled out each year as to how many calendar days you have resided abroad and how many days you have visited the U.S.

If you have a mutual tax treaty with the country that you are living in, all seems to be fine, but if you report that you spent, for example, 10 days of "business" in the U.S. and made a deal of some sort, you are liable to pay tax to the IRS on the profits of that deal.

Again, I think that's to catch the little fish like us, but allow the real sharks to go free.

[ShotOne]

The trouble with this visa business is that other countries are likely to follow the US example -so in future we'll have to visit the embassies of half a dozen countries to explain to some jumped up government official why you should be allowed to keep your job.