Originally Posted by
guv1976
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)
Are there any situations, other than Kuwait's Fifth Freedom JFK-LHR and LHR-JFK flights, where the laws of the carrier's flag country require discrimination that is not also required by the laws of a flight's sending/receiving countries? Or is this a one-off situation merely involving these particular KU flights?
Nothing -- except, perhaps, economics -- requires KU to carry local traffic between JFK and LHR.
Exactly, and KU should not be allowed 5th Freedom privileges to carry traffic between JFK and LHR until they can take all categories of passengers eligible to fly that route, period. Let the Kuwaiti government subsidize the loss if they prefer to keep this law on their books.
All of the BS about "didn't present a valid passport" etc is just that -- and KU knows it, which is why they are quick to rebook, rather than try to claim that the passenger was wrong and the ticket value is lost. Timatic doesn't even have a field for "airline", so IATA (whose rules the ticket was purchased under) doesn't appear to allow airlines to arbitrarily ignore passports from a specific country when it's not related to verifying that the customer will be able to enter the destination, which is not at issue here.
The customer isn't responsible for verifying obscure rules of a code-share partner -- when I book a United regional jet flight, do I have to call Skywest to ask whether they will take my California license, etc? No. And as pointed out, this is not a common problem to be aware of, as US carriers can take North Korean, Iranian, and other passport holders, and carriers like EK will take Israeli passport holders even connecting through DXB.
IMO, until the practice of selling these tickets is ceased (and the DOT should get involved to do so), the airline must rebook proactively, and potentially pay IDB/EU261 compensation if the replacement flights are not very close to the same time.