In light of the recently reported bungle by a Virgin airlines employee who prevented a valid visa holder from boarding a flight out of Australia, the question must be asked: Do the airline check-in staff who have the power to decide whether a passenger gets on board have any decent training on visa rules?
Should airline check-in staff be required to have at least a basic certificate issued by an independent immigration training organisation before they are allowed to work at the airline check-in counter? They are after all playing judge, jury and executioner to unwary travellers dream holidays and travel plans.
These questions must certainly be on the on minds of Indonesian tourists Betty and her mother Lam-In
According to a report in The Daily Telegraph today, Betty and Lam-In have a 12-month multiple-entry visas that allow stays of up to three months at a time in Australia. Last month they planned to fly Virgin to Fiji with friends for a long weekend then return to Sydney. It would be fun and keep their visas intact.
But at Sydney Airport, a Virgin employee refused to check them in. Perhaps she misread the DIBP instructions on the computer. Perhaps she misunderstood it or was clueless. But she chose to rule the visas were no good as her interpretation was that “the date of return was more than three months after they last entered Australia”. Betty’s pleas to speak to a supervisor were ignored with the explanation that the supervisors would say the same thing and were too busy anyway.
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