Problem checking in at ZRH
 

Maybe one for Oliver2002.

I had a very strange experience earlier this week at ZRH - I've never had this before:

• The day before the flight, online was throwing an error when trying to check-in for the flight, both app and website, so I could not retrieve my boarding pass
• On the day of the flight, I went to ZRH early and at the check-in counter, the agent was also unable to check me in and sent me to ticketing
• The ticket desk said there was nothing wrong with the booking / ticket and sent me to the specialist service desk
• The service desk agent was also unable to check me in on the booking initially
• It took several agents over an hour to resolve the issue
• He spent a long time on the phone with ADC carrier support / Altea support
• He told me it was something to do with IAPP overrides?
• He eventually contacted the station manager and got permission to override something in the system
• He also told me that they had never seen anything like this before.

Sounds like an LH IT special - it was the most inconvenient one for me yet.

Where did you fly and what airline?

Chances are that there could have been something with the automated documents / electronic travel authorization checks going on in the background.

EAPP override:

It lloks like your passport details were not confirmed to be OK by the destination country.

Thanks for the info.

It was for the UK - for which I have a British passport.

The agent did say that the support helpline had.to contact the UK border help desk.

Check-in worked fine this week - as it has all the other times before.

Mmm - who to blame LH or UK IT systems - dilemma.

Nothing to do with LH IT they use Altea which has an interface with the immigration authorities at the destination which gives the OK to board. If that is not working they have to do a manual override.

I was under the impression that no such request is being made for UK nationals traveling to the UK. Perhaps that caused the issue? Altea for some reason requesting "ok to travel" from the UK despite OP being a British national, causing the British system to throw an error.

The immigration system of the destination also checks the documents presented. For example to see if the passport has been reported as stolen. Just having the passport of the destination country doesn't really matter.

The UPT documentation I found is not entirely clear, but I'm leaning towards the interpretation that "ok to board" status does not need to be queried for UK nationals and is presumed.

Of course, immigration authorities will run a myriad of other checks based on PNR data, but that's not related to check-in.