Airlines have been responsible for ensuring that all passengers are compliant with travel regulations for decades. This responsibility, or the liability that comes with it, is not new. What has changed is the operational burden on the airlines with the evolution of visa schemes.
More countries have been rolling out Electronic Travel Authorisations (ETAs). ETAs in principle are easier to check than regular sticker visas. When an airline captures the passport data of a passenger, it includes the data needed to check ETAs: passport number, nationality, date of birth, etc. If the airline system is already connected to the government systems, they can automatically inquire and get a clear response without the need for a cross-reference to a visa sticker or any interpretation of countries’ rules.
There is growing confusion among passengers due to the relationship between visa-free travel and ETAs. Typically, any country rolling out an ETA makes it applicable to those who did not need a visa at all. This distinction of needing a visa versus an ETA is lost on a large share of the travelling public. Europeans need an ETA to enter the United Kingdom now, after travelling there freely for years. The reverse will soon be true as well with European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS).
Even if passengers are aware, they might still encounter a fragmented landscape as sources of information: official government pages sitting alongside a large number of third-party services. Some of these service providers charge fees well above the official cost for what is ultimately a very easy application process. This is not always a sign of bad intent, and there are genuinely helpful providers, but the proliferation of such services has created confusion about where to apply, how much to pay, and whether the application has been processed correctly. On a more serious note, fraudulent sites have been well documented for collecting payment and personal data without submitting any application at all. The fact that thousands of passengers believe they have complied, only to discover at check‑in that they have not, is truly a troubling situation for both the passengers and the airline.
The result is passengers who don’t get their ETA on time, apply through wrong channels or use passports they might not be travelling with. When these passengers arrive at the airport and get a CHECK response from UK ETA, the agent must escalate manually by assisting the passenger in generating a share code on their eVisa account so that their status can be verified through a government portal.
Ensuring passengers are informed, are going through the right process and are preparing for their journey is one aspect of the problem. Handling exceptional cases is another that creates pressure on an airline’s operations.
IATA’s latest study of 49 airlines found out that 111,781 Inadmissible Passenger (INAD) cases were encountered among nearly one billion passengers carried by the surveyed group of carriers. This is approximately 1 in 10,000 passengers. The number significantly varies among carriers, some reaching 75 INADs out of every 10,000 passengers. This gap is a clear outcome of the quality of document compliance processes. The cost per case including penalties, repatriation flights, escorts, accommodation, and legal ends up to be a significant value at $25,000 hindering profitability where the margins are already very low.
The impact on operations goes beyond the cost for INAD cases. 8 out of every 100,000 flights in 2025 ended up experiencing major disruption directly due to INAD cases and another 1,000 flights were delayed, and another 2,000 were rebooked.
The frustration and the inconvenience for passengers caused by a denied boarding, a missed trip, a lost accommodation or an onward connection is potentially more damaging to the airline than the cost of INADs.
Most leading airlines are shifting their focus on travel readiness as an operational priority. The traditional check-in window is too short to manage travel readiness effectively. Expanding that window, from booking to the travel date, makes it easier for passengers to understand and comply with regulations. An ETA may take only minutes to apply for, but discovering the requirement 40 minutes prior to departure is an entirely different problem.
By introducing mechanisms to create awareness and inform travelers about requirements, an airline can substantially reduce denied boardings. To do so with a trusted and authoritative source, far from the noise of third-party sites and misleading information, many airlines are integrating Timatic Widget on their websites. Passengers receive accurate, and up to date information sourced from the same data that is used to check more than 1 billion international travelers every year. It reduces confusion, failed applications, and the volume of edge cases arriving at the airport.
The response to ETAs rolling out cannot be to train every agent. It requires systems that hold the right information, and surfaces it at the right time, for the right passenger, and are flexible to meet the operational preferences and realities of an airline.
Airlines have varying check-in processes, IT systems, risk appetites, focus, objectives, and limitations at each station. An airline handling huge volumes of transfer passengers have different needs from a point-to-point operation. This is where flexibility is crucial to optimize the passenger readiness for travel and address the challenges that come with it. Timatic typically handles this challenge through a business layer that enables airlines to configure their workflows and processes for each channel, route, and demographics and the guidance of our experts supporting more than 300 airlines with best practices.
ETIAS will launch later this year. During the transition period, airlines will have to run traditional Schengen visa checks alongside the new ETIAS inquiries, leading to multiple breakpoints instead of fewer.
The global direction will continue with more ETA-like systems rolling out. IATA’s long-term vision where states issue travel authorizations and credentials directly to passengers is still some time away. In the meantime, through systems like eVisas and ETAs, the airlines that manage this transition well will differentiate themselves through the value they create in passenger experience. The cost of not doing so will be measured in penalties, denied boardings, and customers lost.
