How do airlines check whether a traveler has an electronic visa?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 19 Jul, 2023
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Yes, each airline has a system to check any E-Visa and if a visa is required for a passenger. I work for Delta Airlines and here is their system to check:
Airlines do have computer systems that do this, yes.
Many countries, such as the US, require airlines to transit information about inbound passengers prior to flight departure through an Advance Passenger Information System (APIS). Brazil, which the OP mentioned, is one such country. Brazil, along with a number of countries, uses a product called SITA iBorders to take care of this on the government’s side; one module handles e-visa issuance and verification:
Supports denial-of-boarding checks that allow a government to authorize travel in real time, one passenger at a time, at flight check-in. Data known in the industry as
interactive API, or advance passenger processing (APP) is exchanged between airlines and the iBorders system. Denial of boarding checks may include final watch list and risk assessment checks as well as validation of travel documents against the ETA, visa and passport and other databases. The system supports denial-of-boarding checks for 11 governments, with more than 200 million passengers processed annually on behalf of 130+ airlines.
Other countries may have their own systems or use different vendors (such as ARINC). The airlines, in turn, connect their IT systems to vendors that know how to talk to these systems. Airlines need permission from a country to operate flights there, with many conditions imposed as part of that process, so complying with immigration and data interchange requirements is just one of the many tasks they need to address before they start service.
Not every country has an APIS system, and it’s possible that there are various gaps in the system (I have no idea if Azerbaijan e-visas are really electronically checked before boarding, for instance, though they do seem to encourage printing them out and talk up how the printout has a machine readable zone, which makes me suspect not), but since airlines can receive substantial fines for transporting passengers without proper documentation, it’s mandatory for many of the largest travel markets.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘