Help! Qatar Airways denied us boarding due to a broken link.

Dear Tripped Up,

I am an American single mother living in Jordan and working for the United Nations. In September 2019, I adopted my then 5-year-old son from China and promised him that we would return to visit his country every year. But then the pandemic struck. When China finally reopened to tourists in 2023, we obtained visas and booked a flight in July to Beijing via Doha on Qatar Airways, for a total cost of about $1,400. My son, now 9, had worked hard to keep his tongue together and was excited but nervous. At the time, the Chinese government required passengers to fill out a health declaration form in advance or upon arrival. The link on the Qatar Airways website was down, but I confirmed online and with friends who had recently traveled to China that I could fill it out upon arrival. At the airport, Qatar Airways disagreed and, once again, when I failed to get the form to work, we were denied boarding. My son collapsed on the airport floor sobbing. I rebooked for the next day and we flew to Beijing via Istanbul on Royal Jordanian and China Southern for $1,882. Neither airline asked to see the QR code indicating my form had been approved: all arriving passengers were asked to fill out new forms. Qatar Airways refunded most of the tickets we had received, $1,185, but refused to admit it was a mistake. With more expensive last-minute flights and other costs (such as rebooking domestic flights and trains in China), we are at about $930. I think the airline should provide a flight voucher that compensates us for this amount. Can you help? Elizabeth, Amman, Jordan

Dear Elizabeth,

Your encounter with the complex world of international travel documents was particularly devastating because of the emotional stakes this trip posed for your family. But confusion over documents leads to denied boarding thousands of times a day, said Max Tremaine, CEO of Sherpa, a company that maintains a database of international entry requirements for travelers.

Without wishing to excuse Qatar Airways for what I would charitably call excessive and vigorous enforcement of the rules, frontline airline workers faced with long check-in queues can have a difficult task in quickly judging whether travellers have sufficient documentation or not.

Countries all have their own entry rules based on which passports travelers hold and where they are coming from, and airlines are fined when they mistakenly allow people to fly. The decision can be simple when their clients are an American family with valid passports heading straight from New York to London for a week's vacation. But travel can be complicated, for example when a Dutch banker goes to Bangladesh via Cairo or an Australian trapeze artist with a one-way ticket goes to a show in Kyrgyzstan via Frankfurt. The pandemic has only complicated this complicated system. In your situation, your route took you through the Qatar Airways hub in Doha, meaning those following you to Jordan were likely heading to dozens of countries, all with their own rules.

In its responses to your complaints, Qatar Airways cited information from Timatic, a system used by many international airlines to track ever-changing entry and exit rules. An email response said: “At the time of your travel, a China QR code was required before boarding the flight, and also in accordance with Chinese regulations.”

When I contacted the airline, I received a similar response in a statement from Craig Thomas, Qatar’s vice president of sales for the Americas. Passengers traveling to China were required to complete an electronic health declaration from Chinese customs before boarding the plane, he wrote, noting that local entry requirements are often complicated and that the airline is committed to helping our passengers resolve any issues that may arise.

But Qatar is wrong about what Timatic advised at the time. Timatic is managed by the International Air Transport Association, a trade organization better known as IATA. The deputy group director who runs Timatic from the Netherlands, Mahir Sahin, sent me the real information that Qatar Airways staff could have relied on in July 2023:

Passengers must complete an exit/entry health declaration form and present a QR code before departure or upon arrival.

The bit or on arrival applied to your situation, as you discovered on your second itinerary. When I questioned Qatar Airways about this apparent omission on their part and asked if this would change their decision not to refund you the requested credit, they did not respond.

But airlines often act extremely cautiously in these areas because they are wary of government fines if they carry passengers without the proper documentation. Timatic has no official status, Mr. Sahin said. The airline is ultimately responsible.

Mr. Sahin explained to a pondering officer at the check-in counter: The officer who registers you doesn't know if everything you enter will be accepted by the government.

Airlines still sometimes use risk management, he said, by making informed decisions when boarding a passenger, especially in cases where government rules and regulations leave room for interpretation.

But there are precautions you and other travelers can take to reduce the risks.

International documentation requirements differ, so it is helpful to read each country's policies as well as recommendations from the U.S. Department of State.

But the best strategy, Mr. Sahin said, is to use the same source that provides the airline with its entry requirements information. Many international carriers offer online resources powered by data from Timatic (or other providers like Sherpa) that allow passengers to read what they read. (The Qatar Airways Travel Conditions page uses Timatic data.)

You can also consult the databases for yourself, using this somewhat cumbersome but perfectly functional page for Timatic, and this more user-friendly but not necessarily as detailed one for Sherpa.

Ultimately, however, as you have discovered, airline agents still have room to interpret, and sometimes misinterpret, the rules. This is especially true when you are connecting through an airline hub to a third country and the agent may not be familiar with that destination's immigration procedures.

Even American family traveling to London could theoretically be required to prove they have booked accommodation, according to the British government. Timatic does not mention this in its guidance to airlines, and for most travelers it is unlikely to happen.

But when Timatic mentions a requirement, travelers should take it seriously even if they find conflicting information elsewhere.

I received an email from a California woman who was denied boarding by Avianca for a trip from Los Angeles via San Salvador and Bogotá, Colombia, to La Paz, Bolivia. In Los Angeles, an Avianca employee wouldn’t let her board, telling the traveler she needed passport photos and a copy of her recent bank statements. She countered that there’s no mention of that requirement on the State Department’s page on entry requirements for Bolivia. But that was the wrong place to look. If she had looked at the page provided by Aviancas Timatic on travel requirements, she would have seen the requirement for passengers to have a photo ID and be able to provide proof of funds upon arrival, and that could have been bank statements.

She booked another appointment for the next day, took photos and duly printed off her bank statements. But you know the story: the Bolivian authorities asked for neither.

If you need advice on a well-laid travel plan gone awry, email [email protected].

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/travel/qatar-airlines-international-documentation.html The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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