Transit Visa
 

My wife and I are on a multi-country tour. On the return back to the United States, we're flying DXB-LHR-BOS. First leg is Gulf Air and second leg is United Airlines. I understand I have to transit from Terminal 4 to Terminal 2 and can do this airside, but various sources are rather confusing on these two questions:

• Does my wife need a transit visa? She's a Ukrainian with a US green card. From what I've read, as long as she stays airside and we depart on the same day then we don't need one. Can anyone confirm this?
• Do we need to recheck bags? The flights are under the same reservation, but I don't know if Gulf Air and United Airlines have an interline agreement (or if it even matters).

Thanks in advance!

I had a quick look at the home office site here:

https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa/y/u...ewhere_else/no

It says that she won’t need a visa if transiting.

As for the bags, it will depend on there being an inter line agreement between those two airlines. You may be better off checking in a different forum as this is dedicated to British Airways. I’ll ask for this thread to me moved somewhere that’s more appropriate for the questions.

While this is a wrong forum, let me try to help you:

1. If you fly DXB-LHR non stop it is EK and not GF. EK operates out of T3 and recently signed a deep cooperation agreement with UA, so interline agreement exists.
2. If you fly with GF you will travel via BAH and GF indeed operates out of T4. Do not forget to check transit visa requirements for BAH.
3. If you purchased a ticket through a traditional Travel Agent, TMC or OTA they should have checked interline agreements. All GDS'es (for sure Sabre and Amadeus) have automatic agreement control. They will not issue a ticket unless interline agreement exists. I do not foresee any issues here.

Hi

If you remain airside then a transit visa is not required at all.

Just for information and for the information of anyone else reading the thread, transit visas are only required if you need to enter landside; i.e. actually 'entering' the country. A hypothetical example is where the onward flight doesn't leave until the next day and you'd need to stay in an airport/nearby hotel overnight. Being a Ukrainian national then technically she would require a Visa to enter the UK. However even in this situation entry can be granted without a visa - a Transit Without Visa. The conditions are only until the end of the next day, as long as entry is assured to the onward country (the Green Card ensures this) and there is a confirmed flight booking (which she'd already have). She'd be granted entry for one day to enable her to continue her onward journey.

Hope that helps.

With some passports, you actually do need a transit visa for the UK (a "Direct Airside Transit visa") even if you stay airside and never cross the UK border:

To note, this doesn't apply to Ukrainian passport holders, but conversely Pakistani passport holders (for example) do need a DATV just for transiting through the UK even without crossing the UK border, en route to a non-UK/Ireland/CTA destination.

Thank you, TPJ! I apologize for posting this in the wrong section.

Yes, you're totally right. Although we're flying from DXB, we are connecting in BAH before heading off to LHR (GF on first two legs and UA on last leg). These flight segments were booked on Air Canada using award miles.

Thank you and that was more or less my understanding. I asked this because I couldn't find information if GF and UA have an interline agreement. If not, we may need to exit airside to grab our bags and recheck them.