m.y

HK citizens are also exempt from visa to Canada. ANA and China airliens will sell you a ticket via YVR on the way to SEA without warning about transit visa. The Korean airlines also transport many Chinese citizens. I don't buy your explanation.

ricktoronto

For Thais arriving from Hong Kong, I doubt that.

weiwunokenan

I believe it's one's responsibility to make sure if a visa is needed for connection at a foreign airport. In fact, I check on numerous websites to see if I need a visa for connection as I think airlines are not require to provide such information.

Government policy changes all the time. If airlines provide outdated information and passengers are denied entering the country, should thr airline take any responsibility?

spin88

Hong Kong Air sold OP a ticket HKG-YVR with a connection on AS YVR-USA. Were I in OPs place I would assume there was not an issue, otherwise the airline would flag it for me. Hong Kong Air sold this as a CONNECTION. It was not bought as two seperate tickets. Again, OALs have made arrangements to allow such a transfer. Between one guy in Thailand who may never have travelled abroad and a major airline, who do I place the responsiablity on? The ticket seller is IMHO responsible. They are in the business of making $$$ by selling tickets, via a connection, and the responsibility to understand and explain any issues - here created by them not being part of the sterile pass through arrangement at YVR - rests on them.

As to the argument that e.g. ANA and JAL don't have such arrangements, well I ran some dummy searches and don't see that they offer on their web-sites tickets via Canada. They just don't connect their (or at least don't offer on their web-site) and as such it is not their issue. If someone can show me a routing offered by ANA, JAL, EVA, Asiana, or KAL on their web-site with a connection in YVR then I am may consider who I think is at fault....

Here Hong Kong Air (like CX, and AC) offers such connections via YVR, and is not part of the waiver, and does not provide any disclosure or information to key people off to an issue that they clearly ought to know about. That is what makes Hong Kong Airline a crappy airline.

Yoshi212

Found flights on KE, BR & OZ via YVR in about 2 minutes. It is up to the traveler to obtain any and all visas for travel including transit visas. HKA could do better to advise people but it also is not their legal responsibility to do so and they state such in many places as does every other airline.

dls25

Directly from JAL website for BKK-SEA route.

Sucks for the OP but at the end of the day it is his fault. If he/she did not feel like researching transit visa requirements, that level of service is part of why travel agents still exist.

blandy62

as you said it is the passenger responsibility to have their documentation in order. I don't think anybody will hargue about it. But still airlines could let passenger know about it. A warning during booking doesn't cost anything. If people ignore it well it is their problem. Airlines are not not responsible. Yes but that's an easy way to make money.hK business style. Hide yourself Behind the law to steal money....

blandy62

Really. Lol when is the last time you tried to deal with a TA. Not mentioning a HK TA

dls25

I actually deal with them regularly on a professional basis. Never dealt with a HK-based one but the agencies I do deal with realize visa info and assistance is part of the value that their passengers are paying them additional money to provide.

hkskyline

I don't think I have encountered airlines outside HK with such blatant pop-up warnings on visa requirements, since they don't always collect passport/nationality information at the time of booking. It is also a legal liability issue, as visa requirements can change frequently and if the airline gives a wrong warning, they could be held liable by the customer after the fact. So why should they be on the hook when the T&Cs and international standard practice puts the responsibility solely on the passenger?

I don't think it's a simple to put warning box. Someone has to maintain the visa requirement table, interpret it, and translate that into a useful warning. A generic pop-up reminder means nothing and will get ignored.

plunet

Whilst I still maintain that it has to be the responsibility of the passenger and the OP to verify their immigration arrangements, I think the pop-up or message during booking people are suggesting would be useful for HX to put on this kind of itinerary would be to flag to customers that "no international transit arrangements exist at YVR for the connection being proposed, and that customers must satisfy themselves that they hold the appropriate immigration status to be able to complete the transit to the final destination."

No complication for the airline to refer to specific country or immigration regulations and risk being wrong

The difficulty is that air tickets have so many points of sale beyond the airlines own website, and varying capability to show such messages across all points of sale. At worst it could end up being buried in the fare rules which are often not exposed to customers in full, and even when exposed I bet less than 1% of customers would read them, get past the first page, or could understand them.

percysmith

CX does this slightly better, but this is not an apples-to-apples comparison as this CX888 flight is one flight number ("direct flight", even though the term is confusing) from HKG to JFK via YVR.

I am in the camp that HX did no less than it is required to because normally airlines' websites do not show transit visa requirements where more than one flight is involved. E.g. if I need to transit the US, CX, HX, BA, Expedia and so on will not remind US requires all transit passengers to have visas or ETSAs.

percysmith

HKSAR passport holders still need a eTA to enter or transit Canada by air despite holding visa exemption (that just means we don't need full visa from Canadian consulate)

Thai nationals do not have that visa exemption. They can TWOV on one of the approved airlines, but otherwise need transit visas.

ajeleonard

Even if they put on their own website, many people book through third parties either online or offline. It is the passenger's obligation to satisfy documentation requirements for their itinerary and citizenship.

percysmith

I probably should extend my comment about HX behaving like a LCC during IRROPS to any situation where customer service is required.