Originally Posted by
PVDtoDEL
If OP got lost at PEK and went to ask an airline employee what to do, they would direct him through the transfer process described above. If he said "I don't want to do TWOV, I want to do the other process," they'd send him to immigration.
We should use terms which reflect ground realities. To an airline employee, TWOV does not imply immigration - rather, it implies just the opposite. And airline employees are the people on the ground available to help inexperienced travelers. If we want to avoid confusion, we should follow along with the common industry usage of terms.
The term TWOV implies that a visa would be required without transit. Timatic would not refer to TWOV at HK, because such a policy is unnecessary.
I stand by all my previous statements. I'm just trying to improve clarity and impart to those who had specific questions about moving through PEK what they can expect and what to do for their situation and needs. I think your opining on "ground realities" of questions to and responses from travelers to airline employees are fanciful at best--maybe your reality but nobody else's. As
LHR/MEL pointed out earlier, that's not what real people ask in real time. I really can't figure out exactly what you are trying to do on this thread with your last few posts, except attempting to start some sort of useless argument using as example an airport you don't seem to be as familiar with as you want us to believe. If you're going somewhere with all this, clue us in to your end game. Otherwise, you're just running laps here.
Originally Posted by
GinFizz
As far as I can see there are, in effect, no countries not eligible for 24-hour TWOV, though only certain passport holders are eligible for the 72-hour version.
On another issue, I just checked TIMATIC and can no longer see an explicit reference to "max. 2 stops" (I think it used to say this). It does say though that US/Canada passport holders are not eligible for 2-stop transit through certain cities, so maybe this is just a glitch (there can't be many routings in any case that would need 3-stop transit ...)
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21 Jun 2013 / 15:54 [UTC]
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(my
bold #1)
Good spot. Yes it definitely used to say "maximum 2 stops" so this is a change in wording to "multiple." I also tried it with 2 other examples: an Australian leaving Australia transiting China on the way to Mongolia. And a Brazilian leaving from USA transiting China on the way to Kazakhstan (!). Wording has also been changed there so it looks systemwide. That said, even 2 stops in 24 hours' allowance--which has not changed--was pushing it, so 3 or more stops for a 24 hour transit is probably not something that anybody needs to be trying...though I'd love to see somebody make the effort
. I can't imagine that it would ever be time-and cost-effective anyway.
(my
bold #2)
It's not a glitch but it is weird. This highly targeted notation has been in TIMATIC since last year some time. I believe it was put in as a protectionist measure for Chinese airlines' and fare structures on certain routes. Each of the listed cities has nonstop flights to either Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and/or Seoul that are on either JL or KE metal. I can understand that under certain circumstances it might be desirable to fly from North America to Tokyo or Seoul then directly into say, Zhengzhou on a non-Chinese carrier--assuming Zhengzhou was the target destination for a visa-toting visitor.
However, I've never been able to grasp the logic about exactly how prohibiting these cities for inclusion on a double-stop transit (but single-stop is OK) accomplishes anything meaningful from a Chinese viewpoint. Any 24 hour, N.A.-originating, international double-stop transits I could come up with using at least one of these cities--such as LAX-ICN-XIY-URC-ALA--didn't seem to make a lot of cost or routing sense for the traveler since the 24 hour limit is too short for any sort of stopover anywhere. It could theoretically cut out a Chinese carrier from the international segments and also favor a stopover in Korea (or Japan) rather than China. Since it was targeted specifically to US and Canadian passport holders (Mexicans apparently no problem though
) it must have to do with the Chinese TPAC routes and a perception of a threat to their ability to feed passenger traffic beyond the main gateway hubs.
Or perhaps it was an anticipatory restriction that was to preempt some sort of new condition that hasn't yet materialized. It also doesn't explain why other north/central Chinese cities with similar nonstops served by Japanese and Korean carriers (YNT, TAO, etc.) weren't on the list. Or perhaps like many weird pronouncements coming from China officialdom, it was specifically meant to be meaningless just to show face that officials are getting tough on "something" without needing to mention that the "something" being restricted was a non-issue in the first place. There is plenty of precedent for this tactic in modern China.