Tchiowa

People keep missing the main point. As far as Kuwait is concerned, an Israeli passport is no more valid that a Justice League of America membership card from a comic book.

(Is that fair? IMO, no it isn't. But I don't rule the world. Yet.)

The airline has a rule that a passenger must present a valid passport. So does every other airline on the planet.

cbn42

Fifth freedom privileges are usually granted through some sort of bilateral treaty or open skies arrangement. If either the US or UK starts to violate those types of international treaties, other countries are going to retaliate by blocking their flights.

KU may know it, but the Kuwaiti government doesn't. KU is doing the politically simple thing and just rebooking in order to avoid becoming the center of an international dispute and getting bad press.

Timatic is not a legally binding authority on who can board a plane. Neither Timatic nor IATA can overrule a nation's laws.

Actually, yes, the customer is responsible for determining the operating carrier and verifying its rules. The fact that you think the rule is "obscure" is irrelevant.

Since when was "this is not a common problem to be aware of" a valid justification for not following the rules? I would think that any Israeli passport holder would be aware that many Muslim countries don't recognize the nation. If they aren't, it's on them.

You want to go where?

You talk about countries, but KU is an airline, not a country, and it appears a number of other Gulf airlines do not have this problem. The fact that KU attempts to mitigate by rebooking rather than saying, sorry, your problem, suggests that even they aren't comfortable dumping the whole thing on the the passenger.

Tchiowa

KU is an airline .... owned by the Kuwaiti government.

GUWonder

What makes you sure that KU is technically owned by the Kuwaiti government? Have you examined its capitalization tables? Not everything considered a "state-owned enterprise" is technically owned directly by the government . Even most SOEs are not "the government".

The following is absolutely correct:

"KU is an airline, not a country, and it appears a number of other Gulf airlines do not have this problem. The fact that KU attempts to mitigate by rebooking rather than saying, sorry, your problem, suggests that even they aren't comfortable dumping the whole thing on the the passenger."

Tchiowa

I used to live there.

GUWonder

And the Emir's immediate family knows me well. Neither of these facts convinces me that you know the answer to my question.

chessman

That may be true, but that doesn't necessarily help the airline. When operating in the US (as in any country), the airline is subject to the relevant laws regulating their activities. If declining to recognize the Israeli passport were considered illegal national origin discrimination (which common carriers can't engage in) the airline would have to comply with the law in the US, regardless of what they did elsewhere.

cbn42

KU probably just rebooked in order to avoid bad publicity in the US and UK. It is better for them to absorb the cost of rebooking for a few Israeli passengers, than to lose business from Americans and Europeans because they got bad press. I don't see any reason they were obligated to rebook.

All businesses that operate internationally are required to comply with all relevant laws, including extraterritorial laws that apply outside the country that passed them. No business can cite one country's laws as a justification for not following another country's laws.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"No business can cite one country's laws as a justification for not following another country's laws."

While that may be true, if Kuwait law prohibits KU from transporting an Israeli passport holder between JFK and LHR, and if U.S. and/or U.K. law prohibits KU from discriminating against Israeli passport holders in the transportation of passengers locally between JFK and LHR, then KU might find itself with no alternative but to abandon the carriage of all passengers locally between JFK and LHR. The conflict of laws, if it exists, exists only because KU has opted to exercise its Fifth Freedom right to carry local traffic between JFK and LHR.

GUWonder

The US Government has a continuing history of making airlines -- more so US airlines -- discriminate against passengers even when the passengers are free persons and admissible for immigration control purposes. If the U.S. wants to see such discrimination continue when it comes to US airlines (and even, in some ways, non-US airlines), then why should the U.S. stop foreign carriers from discriminating against people based on citizenship? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I think it's bad for both, but the US Government has acted otherwise for years and years in allowing -- and even demanding -- that its carriers and others' carriers discriminate against admissible persons with valid tickets.

You want to go where?

I agree, except that I would remove the word 'just'. You are saying the same thing that I did. They aren't comfortable dumping this on the passenger, because they know there would be an uproar. That is why many corporations do the ethical thing when it isn't required by government regulation. I would remove the word 'just' because it suggests that there are other reasons companies make decisions besides their own economic interest. Exception: The owners of some closely-held private companies may make decisions for other reasons. However, if those decisions are too far off the economic best interest of the company, the company will go bankrupt.

Tchiowa

Educating you is becoming a full time job.

From Kuwait Air web site:

https://www.kuwaitairways.com/en/abo...teprofile.aspx

"On the wave of the oil boom of the 1940s, a national carrier was born in 1954. Initially, Kuwait Airways Company served a limited network of Abadan, Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem but a year later the fledgling carrier was facing economic hardship, and the government of Kuwait took a 50% interest in the airline, subsequently doubling the company's capital. Having entered the rough and tumble world of aviation, the government finally took out 100% share in Kuwait Airways."

GUWonder

Are its shares held by a KIA fund or are they held directly by the government? There are legal distinctions between the two even if beneficially owned by the government indirectly.

relangford

Is it too simplistic for US and UK citizens to refuse to fly (i.e., boycott) Kuwait Airways until they become rational? If there were far fewer passengers JFK - LHR, the airline might decide it is OK to fly Israelis between the US and UK (they guess could still prohibit flights to/from Kuwait). Kuwaitis are lucky that are not citizens of a province of Iraq, due to the US and UK saving them.