Agents questioning residence - why?
 

Recently I have noticed that AC agents at both LHR and FRA have started asking me whether I live in Canada after I show them my Canadian passport for the docs check. I don't recall them asking this additional question before. I wonder why they are doing it - surely a Canadian passport should be sufficient to determine if I can board the plane.

Anyone else notice this or have any ideas?

Is your Altitude address also in Canada? Maybe they're checking for AQD purposes.

Why is it their business if you have CDN passport?

No, this hasn't happened on my last ex-Europe TATLs.

Also:

This ^

Were these roundtrips from Europe, or itineraries that went anywhere other than Canada?

If you answered 'no', you might (reasonably) be asked for a live/work visa for the place the ticket ended.

On TIMATIC one is usually asked to enter country of residence as well as passport. Sometimes, in rare cases, this can affect entry requirements.

Interesting theories - thanks for sharing - if it happens again I'll ask why they want to know

One time flying LH MUC-SFO, I had to go through a huge hassle because the address I had listed when I checked in was the in US, and I had a Canadian passport.

Had I said I lived in Canada, it would have been a lot less pain, but living in the US, they had to go enter all kinds of visa information, etc.

So if there was a connection on the ticket to somewhere other than Canada, this makes a lot of sense.

When feeling lazy, I generally told them I plan to drive back home / take the bus

Another layer in the security theatre?

Residency is a APIS requirement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanc...rmation_System

You have to state your country of residence when doing OLCI or kiosk check-in for international flights to Canada or the US, so why does it matter if a human agent asks you the same question?

This may be part of the "enhanced security questioning" all airlines are required to do to fly to North America to catch terrorists, it's usually more common with departures to the US. Yes, that involves asking small-talk like what you were visiting Europe for, how long you stayed, where are you going, where do you live, etc.

It's annoying as all hell.

There's also the new ETA requirement that came out too, for visitors to Canada, might be related to that.

All you have to do is smile, and shuffle your head right and left a couple of times, and the interrogation will stop. you will be then invited to board in zone 0.

Like in a bollywood movie? Or some genie?