The distressing practice of airlines as first line of border control

Guest post by Aleksejs Ivashuk. Aleksejs is the Founder of Apatride Network, a coalition of stateless individuals, communities and stateless-led organisations working on addressing statelessness in the EU. He is also an associate member of ENS, Co-Lead of Global Movement Against Statelessness, and serves on UNHCR's Advisory Board of Organisations led by the forcibly displaced and stateless.

I am a person without any nationality or citizenship, i.e. stateless. My family and I were among the 700,000 in Latvia who were barred from acquiring nationality when the country became independent in 1991, contrary to political promises made during the independence movement. We received the so-called “non-citizen” status. This status always creates a lot of problems for people, especially in travel or in migration. Restrictions on freedom of movement are only one barrier that stateless people face. It is, nonetheless, the focus of this post, which highlights the inane role airlines play in these restrictions.

The issue of airlines denying boarding to refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless people is not new (see for instance this piece by Amnesty International from 1997). Countries have been increasingly introducing airline liability acts, such as the EU’s Carrier Sanctions Directive, which penalize airline companies for transporting “insufficiently documented” passengers. These regulations force the airlines to act as first line of border control, passing on risk of unqualified decisions unto passengers. The most vulnerable passengers, such as refugees and stateless people, are especially affected.

As a business, fearing the slightest risk of a big fine and other costs, airlines are liable to interpret “insufficiently documented” rather widely. Any doubt may serve as a trigger, real or imagined. Compounding  matters, these decisions are often left to low-ranking officials, unqualified for such levels of decision-making. The airline being in touch with a low-ranking border official of the destination country, who only has minutes to make a decision (due to boarding), serves as a poor safeguard to any pre-existing doubts.

Below I set out my first-hand experience. In April 2023, I had to fly to Nepal, as part of work in starting out my new position as Co-Lead of a global project in addressing statelessness. There was minor confusion about my “non-citizen” passport at the departure airport in Switzerland (where I currently live). After some calls were made, I was told by the carrier, Turkish Airlines, that everything was alright and that I could fly to Nepal. They gave me the boarding passes for Nepal and for my connection in Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul airport is where the trouble started. It did not matter that it was the same airline, and that everything was already checked and confirmed through official channels, including through Nepalese border and immigration officials.

At my connecting flight, there were two airline staff checking people’s passports and boarding passes. One of them was checking the regular way, without paying much attention, while the other was playing the role of an immigration officer: checking people’s passports inside out, checking the visa stamps, and questioning the passport holders. Unfortunately, when my turn came, it was this man that I had to go to. Being equipped with all the official assurances and documents, I did not think too much about it. However, he decided to question my “non-citizen” passport in a dramatic fashion. According to the manager that came along, chat messages were exchanged with some low-ranking border officers in Nepal. After a long delay, they were told I may need a visa to fly to Nepal.

Prior to departure, I was worried about the process of getting a visa on arrival in Nepal, as it was the first time that I had to rely on that kind of visa. I conveyed my concerns to my colleagues in Nepal, and they contacted high-ranking Nepalese immigration officials, who confirmed that there should be no issue and that I could get one. According to the official visa rules in Nepal, only nationals of some countries and refugees with travel documents are required to get a visa beforehand. My situation did not fit either of these categories.

Turkish airlines staff in Istanbul (but not in Switzerland) made an error, and the low-ranking Nepalese authorities that they were in touch with decided to back that error rather than “risk” any unknown. Subjectivity and arbitrariness played a big role.

I was stranded in Istanbul for five days to sort out the visa with my colleagues. It required quite a fight to set things right. Officials in Nepal kept confirming that a mistake had been made, but refused to provide anything written. Latvian officials were stressing that this was a competence issue, and that I should have been allowed to board my flight.

Interestingly, in the course of these events, we found out that five other people with “non-citizen” Latvian passports were also wrongfully denied boarding for Nepal around the same time. They were issued a letter by Nepalese embassy confirming that they could fly to Nepal to receive a visa on arrival. Inexplicably, the same embassy now refused to issue the same kind of letter to me.

During the course of events, we also discovered that there is an official directive issued by the Nepalese Department of Immigration, notice number NEC/3.2/NSCLC/20 (dated August 9, 2022), which states that people with my kind of passport should be allowed to travel to Nepal unhindered. Turkish airlines and Nepalese border officials have access to this directive. In other words, not only did they ignore the visa regulations and interpreted them through their own subjective opinion or fears, they also ignored the established directive that is meant to safeguard against such mistakes.

After a long exchange, the Nepalese embassy in Copenhagen eventually stated that they do not recognize my type of passport as a passport, which all of a sudden became tantamount to questioning the sovereignty of the passport issuer–i.e., Latvia.  This, combined with possible pressure from our contacts in the Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs, marked a turning point. I was issued the same kind of letter that other “non-citizens” of Latvia received a few days before.

Equipped with this letter, knowledge of the directive, and further reassurances from the Nepalese authorities, I headed back to the airport. Initially, Turkish airlines refused to provide a new flight free of charge, and asked me to pay for the change. After a lot of additional effort, I was eventually able to find a cooperative airline staff who recognised the grave error made, and who issued me a new ticket free of charge. Again, subjectivity played a role, this time in a positive way.

When it was time to board, I decided to try to board the flight as per usual, without presenting anything that was gathered over the course of being stranded. I was curious to see if I would run into the same issue.  I boarded without any questions asked, and was not asked to present anything extra at the gate; my passport and boarding pass sufficed. With the same ease I went through immigration control when I arrived in Nepal. There was no need for all these proofs, letters, contacts and directives that my team and I had gathered. The airline, acting as first line of border control, made a serious mistake. I was lucky to have had the backing of my team,  high-ranking contacts in Nepal, patience, and a fighting spirit to set things right. I can only lament how there are people who are not as fortunate to have such advantages.

Interestingly enough, I was almost denied boarding again by the same airline on my return flight to Switzerland from Nepal. Thankfully, arbitrary luck was on my side when a competent manager came along and reversed the decision. I had never been so happy to return home and recover.

Unfortunately, my case is not the only one, nor is it the first time that I was wrongfully denied boarding. People with less common forms of travel documents, such as refugees and stateless people, are vulnerable to such “mishaps” and abuses. At the root of the issue is how countries now penalize airlines for anyone who is denied entry at the border. This forces the airlines to act as first line of border control –– a role that they are woefully unqualified to handle.