Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has called on governments to standardize electronic visa verification procedures, citing the lack of a common system for airlines to confirm the authenticity of electronic visas during passenger check-in.
More than 100 countries issue electronic visas, but airlines still lack a uniform method for verifying their validity, IATA said.
The issue creates direct costs for carriers. Harry Grewal, IATA’s Director of Airports, Infrastructure and Customer Experience, said airlines must ensure that passengers have all the documents required to enter their destination country before boarding an international flight.
Carriers that transport passengers without the necessary documents face fines and deportation costs, averaging US$9,000 per passenger.
Electronic visa confirmations can take the form of emails, PDF files or QR codes. Depending on the country, airlines may need to verify them through a website or a direct connection to a government database. In other cases, staff must check the documents manually against supporting paperwork.
Check-in staff must be prepared to process passengers travelling to any country worldwide, including those transiting through destinations with their own visa requirements.
IATA’s Control Authorities Working Group has published recommendations on issuing and verifying electronic travel authorizations. Based on work by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the recommendations propose two key mechanisms.
The first is interactive Advance Passenger Information (iAPI). Under this system, an airline electronically submits passenger data to the destination country during check-in and receives a real-time response indicating whether the passenger meets the requirements for travel.
According to airlines, countries with fully operational iAPI systems achieve compliance with document requirements at rates up to 20 times higher than countries that rely on manual checks. However, such systems are currently in place in fewer than 30 countries.
The second mechanism is ICAO’s Digital Travel Authorization (DTA). It is a standardized, digitally signed confirmation that presents key authorization details in a uniform format. DTA enables authorities and airlines to verify travel authorization even when iAPI checks are unavailable.
IATA acknowledges that the widespread adoption of iAPI and DTA will take time, partly because of national security considerations.
In the meantime, the association recommends that governments bring existing visa confirmations into line with international standards, develop verification methods compatible with airline check-in systems, and involve carriers in designing new visa programmes.
Grewal said the adoption of common standards would not restrict countries’ sovereign right to decide who needs a visa or to set their own entry requirements.
