Originally Posted by
Nayef
Japan is introducing it too by 2030 so the only outlier will be Ireland among the "western" sphere. And as someone who has tried different ETAs the UK's is least laborious (aside from some problems with the app I'd mentioned in previous posts) and has the least invasive questions compared to its peers. And when I looked up the official FAQ for ETIAS it said that it won't be
required for transiting though I don't imagine it'll be the huge difference-maker that the likes of LHR's CEO are whining about.
The concern isn't the cost, it's that it's going to be a boondoggle like most everything else the UK government does. We're going to be hearing reports of travelers wrongly denied ETAs because they share names with wanted individuals or people on the terror watchlist. We'll be hearing reports in the British and foreign media about Australian grandmothers and retired dentists from the U.S. who have been traveling to the U.K. without issue for years, only to suddenly be refused an ETA for some reason or other.