Hello everyone. I am sure this will get merged with one of the master threads, but I would appreciate if the mods leave it up in the main forum for a little while since it’s time sensitive for today.

A friend of mine booked himself separate tickets from the US (MCO specifically if it matters) to LGW and LGW onto NCE. He did not realize until about 24 hours ago that he needed an ETA, obviously that is on him, but it appears from what we are reading online, the ETA system has been acting up and neither him nor his wife has been approved quite yet.

Unsurprisingly, OLCI is not working, but we are wondering whether the check-in staff recently have been strictly enforcing ETA approvals, whether they are accepting proof of ETA application without approval, or if there is any reason to believe that there might be some leniency given the current outage.

If not, is there any chance that BA will through check the bags so that they don’t need to clear UK immigration?

Otherwise, is there another clever plan anyone can suggest short of just booking a different routing, which is obviously the worst case fallback?

Thanks!

Are they traveling on one ticket for the entire journey (MCO-LGW-NCE)? If so, then their bags should be tagged to NCE when they check in and they shouldn't have to formally enter the UK. In that circumstance, an ETA should not be required.

OP says they are on separate tickets.

Sorry can’t help with the ETA question but on the through check topic it will be a hard No. BA will not do that for separate tickets even if both are BA owned tickets.

As an alternative option; can your friends travel with carry-on bags only (or ship their luggage to Nice in parallel)?

they would require an ETA for that itinerary. only when doing an airside connection would they be exempt, and only LHR and MAN offer that.

LGW does not offer airside connection so they will need an ETA to board either way

It used to be the case that saying you'd applied for one was enough - not any longer.

Although a pinch of salt is often needed on Reddit:

"We applied for our ETA yesterday morning and have heard nothing yet. We missed our flight last night from Toronto, and when we got to the airport there were easily 70+ people stranded because of this ETA outage."

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukvisa/comm..._common_issue/

As others have said, this itinerary absolutely requires an ETA and without one, your friend will not be allowed to fly and will lose their ticket. This is not “strict” enforcement, just the most basic enforcement as without an eta if your friends wrr été miraculously slllowwd to fly, they’d just be kicked out by the uk when they arrive and that’s not good. There is no difference between what they are hoping to do (if eta isn’t confirmed) and trying to fly to Russia or the US without a visa/esta. Ba also will not through check luggage so ravel hbo ot ensure plenty of time between the two flights.

the most “clever”thing your friend ca do if eta is not confirmed is change their tickets (likely involving Change fee + fare difference) so as kit to lose everything. They will absolutely not be allowed to fly without a confirmed eta

Probably after the fact, but the ETA is tied to the passport, so when the passport is scanned (USA use eGates in the UK), it would be rejected, I imagine. I travel in and out routinely and I simply scan my passport and the system recognizes me.
OP, I would be curious to hear what played out. I don't think I've yet heard of what exactly happens without an ETA, though hopefully they got it via onboard WiFi since it's approved very quickly, usually.

Seems unlikely that the customer would be permitted to check in and board without the ETA , so onboard internet would be irrelevant

From what I found, it doesn't seem like there is an outage and that applications are being completed
within the 3 day time that it states to allow.

Hopefully the application will complete before too late to travel but would look at rebooking options for a fallback if getting too close to be able to travel

I don’t believe that eta’s are actually linked in to egates in the uk atm.

If a passenger needs an ETA and doesn’t have one, they won’t get anywhere near the aircraft — the airline will stop them at check-in or at boarding. Airlines are legally required to verify entry requirements and face fines and return-flight costs if they transport someone without proper authorisation. That’s why airlines enforce this strictly, it’s not just advice, it’s a hard requirement.

I know the ETA sounds like a big hassle, but it takes literally one minute to apply for an ETA. Or to be precise it takes one minute between forking out your Ł20 and you receiving confirmation of your ETA acceptance. Hopefully your friend figured that out whilst queueing up at the MCO check-in counter.

Not necessarily - it may take < minute but can take up to 3 days

There are reports from 3 June of techical problems with the ETA system ( see https://thepointsguy.com/news/uk-eta...-what-to-know/ or https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/03/t...ta-outage.html )

OP specifically says (at time of writing) they were still waiting for approval, so it was clearly not ‘literally one minute’ to receive confirmation of acceptance in this case.