fasteddie1971

I quite often fly LIN-LCY/LHR, and in recent months I've uncovered a small issue in the OLCI process, specifically the part which asks for advanced passport information (which only applies to certain destinations).

(As an aside, I quite like the graphical feel of the way the OLCI process is displayed on screen now, but there are two big irritations. Chosing one's country of origin from drop down menus is always a lottery if you're a UK citizen (is it going to be listed as Great Britain, UK/Regno Unito or even Inghilterra). The AZ drop down menu presents the countries in alphabetical order in English, but uses the Italian names, In other words, the UK is shown as Regno Unito, but it can only be found close to the United States and the Emirati Arabi Uniti (i.e. UAE). Must be confusing for first time users... Then when you have to enter date of birth and date of passport expiry, you can't type it in directly, but are obliged to use the "click on a calendar" method, which is a pain. I only have to scan back to the start of the 1970s for my DOB, but I recently checked in my mother-in-law, and she was born in 1939...!)

Anyway, the problem I've uncovered is that it asks for your passport number, date of issue and then "paese di residenza". Now, I'm resident in Italy, so I choose "Italia". But in recent months I've regularly been stopped at the gate and been admonished for having stated my nationality as Italian. Which of course I didn't.

I suspect therefore that the question shouldn't be "paese di residenza" but in fact "paese di emissione documento" (country which issued document)

I also suspect that this "issue" rarely comes to light, as it would generally only arise in the case of a non-Italian but who is resident in Italy, travelling to the UK (or other country which requires advanced information) and only using OLCI without checking any bags (i.e. interacting with a human at a check-in desk), and possibly only if his/her language preferences are set to Italian (depends if the English language version of the question has been formulated correctly).

Just checked in for a flight to LCY this afternoon and marked my paese di residenza as "Regno Unito"

KLouis

Glad you found the solution, although the alternative one (switching the language to English) would have worked as well. In order for you to avoid future problems of this magnitude, Ingilterra and England will never appear on a drop-down menu concerning citizenship, so no reason to spend time looking for them and writing about it! Same as Wales or Scotland, Lombardia or Lazio

irishguy28

It's a bold claim to say that they "will never appear on a drop-down menu concerning citizenship" - they should never, but that doesn't mean that they won't.

Particularly in other languages where there is less rigour in how the UK should be referred to - it seems that in many languages, "England" is acceptable - at least to native speakers - as a stand-in for "Great Britain" or "United Kingdom" (of course, these latter two are not the same either!).

Naming of countries is often problematic. I am never sure whether, when looking for "Ireland" in a drop down list, whether it might be "Ireland", "Republic of Ireland", "RoI", "Eire", or something else again. (The English - or do I mean the British () - often employ many other non-official terms...I have an Auntie who always address cards to "S. Ireland", maybe eventually she will progress as far as "Irish Free State" )

I once saw a couple of Greek guys being given out to by a TSA agent at Newark for filling out their country as "Hellenic Republic" instead of "Greece". He didn't even seem to think, know, or consider that "Hellenic Republic" might actually be a valid, official name - and instead seemed to take the view that they were trying to pull something over on him and sent them out of the line to fill in a new card again.

fasteddie1971

I can only echo what irishguy28 has said....it's not at all uncommon to see the UK referred to as "Inghilterra" (or "inglese" used as a catch-all adjective to describe anyone from the United Kingdom), even in official contexts in Italy.

I have a Scottish friend who moved to a small town in Brianza (north of Milan). When issued with his first ID card, he found they'd written down his nationality as "Inglese". He complained about this (in a tongue-in-cheek way...he's a Scottish nationalist, but not a rabid one). As luck would have it, the mayor was Lega Nord, and thus instinctively sympathetic. So he intervened, and had the nationality field changed to "Scozzese". True story!

irishguy28

Nicola Sturgeon would beam with pride!