Scots_Al

Yes. Yes, you can. Okay, you made a mistake, but you took prompt and reasonable action to correct it with the airline. The airline's agent told you it was sorted, but made a stupid mistake. You shouldn't have to second guess or prompt him to do his job properly.

Of course we're all human and these things happen, but that doesn't absolve him of responsibility.

Globaliser

A bit of speculation here, but I think it may be less to do with whether entry to Ireland is guaranteed and more to do with the passenger's current immigration status in the UK. The biometrics step is intended to ensure that the passenger is already "inside the UK" for immigration purposes before they board a flight whose premise is that all passengers on board are already "inside" (regardless of whether it's then going to a UK or a ROI destination).

Otherwise the passengers on board the LHR-DUB could include someone who holds a British passport, who has arrived at LHR from outside the CTA, and who has not been admitted to the UK by an immigration official. On arrival at DUB, they would not be examined by the ROI because the ROI assumes that everyone on the flight was already "inside the UK" and the ROI then doesn't do an additional check of those holding British passports. The result would be that the passenger would have entered the ROI from outside the CTA without actually being examined or admitted by the immigration force of either country. Having an airline/airport staff member look at your passport en route isn't quite the same thing.

All of this makes more sense for domestic flights, but as in an earlier thread: the CTA represents a great deal of pragmatic compromise, but you have to do all the bits of the pragmatic compromise to make it work.

Ldnn1

Well, it's not my job help BA out with suggestions - and to reiterate I really don't want them to do it. However I do think there are reasonable measures that BA could try at the very least to discourage, if not fully prohibit, B2B turnarounds.

NWIFlyer

I don't see that they would particularly want to.

At the moment, there is added risk and inconvenience in taking an eu-EU flight with a carrier other than BA, in that a same day positioning flight needs to allow plenty of padding to allow for delays. There is also likely to be considerably less sympathy and recourse if something goes wrong.

If BA assumes the same risk level through artificially manipulating boarding procedures, the incentive to use them becomes considerably less and they lose that business to QR/CX/AY etc.

Ldnn1

Yes I think the evidence suggests that BA have not been overly concerned about B2Bs so far, perhaps for the reasons you suggest.

My point was that incidents like OPs - which may well get reported up the line - could encourage BA to rethink this.

Again I’m not criticising OP as I’m sure any of us here could have made the error, I’m just noting that the more hassle this practice causes for BA the likelier it is to get reviewed.

cgtechuk

Agreed however I would argue that some people if it weren't for ExEU wouldn't be flying BA at all so would lose them business anyway on the positioning flight and the LH.

CKBA

Thankfully (?) worked out okay in the end - but must have been a frantic few hours sorting it all out.

Personally, I did my first ex-EU last year (from ARN, back to CPH) - but not as immediate B2B - took the opportunity (with Mrs CKBA) to have a couple days of holiday in Stockholm and Copenhagen - very nice... .

scubaccr

The requirement for a photo of passenger to be stored related to a Domestic T5 Boarding pass is primarily because both Domestic and International flights depart from T5 with no separation of International/Domestic passengers

Thus possibility exists for passengers arriving on International flights to
i)pretend next continuation flight is another international Flight transitting via "International Connections Lane"
(will need show BA ticket eg LHR-AMS)
ii)thus avoid Immigration/passport control for entry to UK
iii)Catch Domestic T5 BA flight to eg Manchester
iv)On arrival at Manchester exit passenger through domestic flight arrival channels, which means no passport/immigration check
v)Net Result :- Someone enters UK without gong trough Immigration
vi)Prevention T5 Domestic Flights :- Photo Biometric linked to BP, checked by Airport Security for a)photo linked to BP b)photo matches traveller

o International T5 Transit Process (arriving on international flight)...
eg HKG-LHR / LHR-AMS
... arriving passenger goes through T5 transfer area, selecting International Flight Lane.
The passenger shows continuing international Boarding Pass / E-ticket
BUT Passenger does not go through immigration desks/show passport because they are in transit and will not be entering UK/Common-Area

o Domestic T5 Transit (arriving on International flight)..
eg HKG-LHR / LHR-MAN
... arriving passenger goes through the main T5 transfer area, selecting Domestic Flight Lane.
Firstly the passenger shows continuing Domestic Boarding Pass / E-ticket checked by BA staff as valid
(BA ladies create a Boarding Pass if eticket shown )
Secondly passenger now goes through passport check/immigration as they will fly domestic to next airport in UK/Common-Area where they will not be immigration checked on arriving at and leaving the airport
Thirdly the Biometric Info is Linked to BPass during this process, it is actually the passengers photo that is associated/linked with BPass for a later security preboarding check at the Domestic Gate.


Regards OP,
in theory as OPs BPass LHR-DUB lacked biometrics (linked photo) , then OP could have arrived Internationally from say HongKong, transitted T5 through "Interbational Connection Lane" avoiding passport control, so if allowed to fly Domestic would be in UK with out being registered as entering UK/Scotland/Dublin etc

Deltus

Maybe I'm being slow here, but I still don't understand how taking a photograph helps. In the above example, if the passenger entered T5 departures using their LHR-AMS boarding pass, then their LHR-MAN ticket would miss conformance and they'd be denied boarding. Is the idea that if they somehow make it onto the MAN flight, they can email the photo to someone in Manchester to apprehend him as he steps off the plane?

corporate-wage-slave

You are looking at this the wrong way around. The biometrics (it's not just a photo) check that whoever gets on a domestic or Irish flight did so either by coming from landside, and therefore already in the UK, or through the UK Border at Flight Connections. This is in the context that T5 has a mix of travellers airside. No biometric means they could only have connected airside by bypassing the Border. Or they swapped boarding passes, as ostensibly happened to the OP here, though in his case accidentally - some people try this with illegal intent. In both cases they should not be allowed to continue their journey without either the clearance of the Chief Immigration Officer or delegate, or can completely prove they really did enter from the UK and the technology failed on them. The last point (technical failure) can be delegated to supervisory HAL staff, the first point cannot be delegated beyond the Border Force.

Globaliser

Why are you focusing on back-to-backs here?

The amount of possible hassle for BA is the same if the passenger decides to take the LHR-EU flight one rotation earlier than the true back-to-back (which also - probably unknown to most passengers - tends to increase rather than decrease the risk and therefore the potential hassle). Given the amount of time taken to sort out the OP's problem, the backup possibility of then doing the true back-to-back may not be practical (even if there were space). Indeed, the error which the OP made is also possible even if you plan to take the first flight of the day out to the EU point, and spending a full day at the EU point is another perfectly viable plan for starting an ex-EU.

Moreover, the questions that I've been asked by crew when I've done back-to-backs (as well as some posts here) suggest that it is not uncommon for passengers to do this for non-fare saving reasons: Sometimes it is literally to hand over documents to someone at the destination airport and to fly straight back. Would BA really want to prevent this type of travel?

:D!

OK, I get it now, it isn't about whether they are in the UK legally or not but about demonstrating that they were already in the UK before boarding the flight.

Regarding the point about "technical failure": at the time biometrics failed on me at LGW-JER, I wasn't a British citizen yet, but I wasn't asked about my nationality - which fits in with the fact that they only sought to establish whether I was in the UK before going airside.

However, I was not able to completely prove I really did enter from the UK.

I offered my driving licence plus a bus ticket from the day before, which I could easily have received from a nefarious BP swapper. I didn't bring my passport.

KARFA

Presumably they just checked the cctv for security to see that you entered earlier and therefore came from landside and must have already been in the UK.

Fitch

This really annoys me tbh - those members of staff need to told this sort of commentary is unacceptable:

Firstly, whatever one thinks of the EU, under European law BA are currently legally obliged not to deny sale of exEU tickets to residents of EU purely on the basis of their address, no matter which Member State they live in.

Secondly, it is BA's commercial decision to offer these fees in the Irish, Danish, Swedish etc. markets. They could either set them at levels comparable to exLON, or withdraw... but whining about Brits buying them is just pathetic tbh.

Thirdly, can we start a campaign against "Fake Views" (aka "BA staff making it up as they go along") ? It really gets my goat

ratypus

yep the bit about BA staff moaning about "cheap tickets" ex-EU is laughable - it is their own fare structure, and their own decision to allow B2B (which they really have no real grounds to prevent)


plus how do they know whether it's even a real B2B or a genuine arrangement - if I have to go to the US, I might deliberately schedule an overdue trip to DUB or CPH to see friends or whatever to get a better fare; if, as I do, I take my wife & kid over to see family Germany whilst I am going away on business...that "looks" like a B2B (LHR-HAM on the evening of Day 1, HAM-LHR-US on the morning of Day 2; reversed at the end of the trip) - but that's a totally real trip - I would be FURIOUS if I got stick from BA staff for buying a "cheap ticket" on that basis...it's a legitimate ticket, from your own pricing structure...and by the way it's still a €1,900 fare which ain't cheap however you look at it...