Originally Posted by
GM1985
It seems the United site produces a truncated, user-friendly version of Timatic. Here is a more comprehensive read-out from ExpertFlyer:
Pure speculation: assuming your wife has a Chinese passport rather than a Hong Kong/Macau passport, the agent probably looked at the Visa Exemptions section for South Africa above and saw that none applied to your wife. Not reading the following section on Transit Without Visa.
My reading of this is that production of the onward ticket on Air Mauritius should have been enough to satisfy the requirement in red above.
I’ll leave it to others to debate the CoC’s and whether transit covers only connecting tickets sold by the same entity or whether an onward ticket could be a separate document.
Sorry to hear about the situation your family face and hopefully you are all reunited soon.
Thanks GM for taking the time to generate that Timatic extract - and your kind words.
Yes my wife is a Chinese mainland national. And yes it seems very clear to me (based on that full extract) that my wife
was eligible for TWOV at JNB. I do find it to be very plausible that the BA agent just stopped reading part way down, as you say.
There is another way of looking at this. The BA CoC state:
13a1) You (not us) must check the relevant entry requirements, including government health policies and requirements for any country
you are visiting and ensure that you meet all applicable entry requirements, including health mitigation measures
One would think that (i) checking Timatic and (ii) consulting with a local immigration lawyer, would easily suffice as fulfilling the passenger's duty under 13(a)(1). Is it not a little odd, to put it mildly, that BA may then turn around and say "well yes you have checked as we require you to, but we are going to impose our own arbitrary requirements anyway".
Anyway it's 2am here after a fraught evening. I am very grateful to all those who have replied. I am going to get a few hours sleep now, before in the morning resuming my battle to be reunited with my family.