mherdeg

Spotted at gate C19 at IAD, a flyer taped to the desk that says:

I wonder what the story is here — did UA face fines from German passport inspectors? Were people actually turned away from immigration and flown back to the U.S. to go sign their passports at home?? Fascinating.

pmarrsouth

Maybe: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...alert-mmb.html ?

mduell

Germany must be serious about it, BA even has a warning on their website.

fgirard

The GAs at EWR and the FAs on EWR-BFS last week kept on reminding us to make sure our passports are signed. There was a signature check during boarding, and then before landing they many another announcement that the passport must be signed, but that only applied to US passport holders only.

channa

For years, every time I've taken UA to Germany (even pre-merger), the UA rep gets on the plane on arrival and warns in an authoritarian tone with German accent, that presentation of an unsigned passport is punishable by an immediate 1,000 Euro fine.

I bet they hit the airline too.

mahasamatman

I don't recall ever hearing that, but it could have easily gone into the "ignore the announcements" bucket in my brain.

MatthewLAX

I've flown to Germany more than 50 times on UA and rarely heard it.

I do remember a flight where the FRA-based crew made this announcement.

fgirard

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12F70 Safari/600.1.4)

I wonder if it is a Frontex requirement, and Germany just so happens to be a stickler for enforcing th directive.

AA_EXP09

and TIMATIC

National USA (US) /Destination Germany (DE)

Germany (DE)

Passport required.
- Passports and/or passport replacing documents must be valid
for at least 3 months beyond the period of intended stay.
Passport Exemptions:

- Holders of emergency or temporary passports issued to
nationals of USA.


VISA NOT REQUIRED.

Minors:
- Minors aged up to/incl. 15 years of age may be included in
the passport of a parent or guardian, provided
For details, click here
Additional Information:

- Valid visas in full or expired travel documents are accepted
provided For details, click here
- Visitors are required to hold proof of sufficient funds to
cover their stay and documents required for their next
destination.

Warning:
- Passports must be signed by the holder. Passports without
signatures will be accepted if: For details, click here
- Passports and/or passport replacing documents issued more
than 10 years prior to date of travel are not accepted.

It is documented in TIMATIC...

meFIRST

The GA at EWR are [sticklers] when it comes to docs checks. As someone with 2 passports ( actually 3) from different countries, this throws them into disarray. Repeated TIMATIC checks done in the most unprofessional way.
Its one of the reasons why I hate flying UA internationally.

emcampbe

Interesting, since I traveled to Canada last week, with our 3-month old who was inaugurating her passport. At check in at CVG, where UA obviously doesn't have any international flights, was asked to sign her passport as her parent - the check in staff (not even officially UA staff) used the specific example of Germany being strict on not allowing anyone in, even minors, without a signature in their passport.

channa

They usually just do some sort of scribble on the BP. If you have a similar colored pen or highlighter, you can do your own doc check. Kind of like self-checkin. Not that i do this, but just sayin'.

It's not a crime to scribble on a BP.

gglave

A child's Canadian passport is required to remain unsigned. In fact, if a child's Canadian passport is signed it's made invalid. A few years ago my wife, 7-month old daughter and I were flying from RSW in Florida home to Vancouver.

However, the check-in agent refused to check us in because our 6-month old child's passport was unsigned.

We tried to explain that Canadian child's passports remain unsigned, but she would have nothing for it, claiming she'd 'been to a course and knew the facts' and that she'd 'pay a huge fine if she let us through'.

Finally we convinced her to phone head office, which she did, only to discover we were correct. Even then she told us we'd be turned away at security. We weren't of course.

We now have the relevant explanatory pages from the Passport Canada web site printed and folded up inside our daughter's passport.

sannmann

Tonight, boarding UA989, IAD-FRA, the agents required a secondary passport check for all passengers at the gate. According to the GA, there have been too many passengers showing up at passport control in Germany without signed passports. Apparently, the Germans are deporting people who are showing up without signed passports. United gets fined by the Germans.

Heads up to others flying from the United States to Germany on United, that you may also have to get in line again for a secondary passport check at the gate.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Germany deporting "bad hombre" Americans