Changing planes at Heathrow? Pay £10 and wait three days to see if you get a permit

Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.

People in the airline industry occasionally and unfairly misdescribe the CAA as the Campaign Against Aviation. While I believe the Civil Aviation Authority could do more to promote the interests of passengers, on the most fundamental metric of all – safety – the CAA has helped keep us safe for decades.

But from what I have seen this week, the government can reasonably be accused of acting against the best interests of UK aviation with its plans for the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA). This online permit will start to become mandatory (initially only for citizens of Qatar) later this year. By the end of 2024, it will apply to all the many nationalities who come to the UK without needing a British visa.

It seems reasonable for a country to seek advance information about prospective visitors; the European Union will launch its Etias online scheme to do just that in the next couple of years (unless there are yet more delays). Etias will not apply to passengers changing planes at a European airport on a journey from one non-EU city to another.

Why should anyone who simply wants to catch a connecting flight by switching gates at Paris CDG, Amsterdam or Frankfurt, and who will not be crossing the EU border, have to handle the extra hassle and expense?

The principle of immunity from local immigration rules has underwritten international aviation for decades: stay “airside” and you need not worry about whether officials at the intermediate airport will let you through passport control.

Yet the UK, which appears increasingly at variance with the rational world, has become an outlier by insisting all connecting travellers must obtain an ETA. The Home Office, which has imposed the requirement, says: “Requiring transit passengers to obtain an ETA will stop transit being a future loophole for people to use to avoid needing an ETA.”

That statement is mystifying. International-to-international transit at Heathrow is already regarded as something of a loophole, enabling connecting passengers to claim asylum in the UK. The government seeks to counteract this by requiring some nationalities to obtain a Direct Airside Transit Visa.

The ETA requirement will be read by many travellers as “please change planes elsewhere”. Imagine someone from Bordeaux seeking a flight to Boston. They could change planes in Dublin, London or Paris (anything you have read suggesting Air France has dropped short domestic flights is wrong; there are seven flights a day from Bordeaux to the French capital).

A prospective traveller faced with a demand for £10 and the hassle of filling in yet another online form, for a permit that may take three days for a decision, is unlikely to choose Heathrow.

“Fuss about nothing,” is one of many responses I have had since I wrote about the latest shot-in-the-foot. “We already have to get an Esta to change planes in the US.”

Correct – but that is because the transit lounge is simply not used in America. Everyone has to be legally admitted. The difference for the UK is that no Border Force official is ever going to inspect a connecting passenger’s ETA; it will simply be down to the airline to ensure that anyone transferring in London has one.

The airline most likely to suffer is British Airways – many of the 25 million-plus transit passengers at Heathrow are on BA. Virgin Atlantic, which gets feed from its partners Air France, KLM and Delta, will also wave goodbye to some customers.

Many other airlines will lose passengers from Heathrow: Terminal 2 does not have a major British carrier (except for mighty Loganair), but every day tens of thousands of travellers connect from Germany to Canada, India to the US and many more combinations. Lose the transit traffic, and those links look less viable – so British travellers could face less choice and higher fares.

The airlines are keeping quiet, while Heathrow says: “Transiting passengers play a key role in supporting routes to many long-haul destinations boosting trade, tourism and investment opportunities. The government should ensure visa and border policies do not generate any competitive disadvantage for the UK.”

I am not convinced that ministers are listening.