The law now requires that airlines must collect Advanced Passenger Information (API) for all the passengers before travel to or from certain counties like Dubai, South Africa, Spain, USA, Thailand and China. The information required include-
- Passport number
- Nationality
- Gender
- Date of birth
- Full name as it appears on your passport
- Passport number, country of issue and expiry date
- Country of residence
In addition to this, for the USA, you will need to provide the address for your first night’s accommodation. Most of the information is collected by swiping most passports through a reader at check-in. However, because some of the new information required cannot be obtained from the passport and thus collecting this additional information at check-in has the potential to make the airport check- in process much longer which in turn will creating long waiting queues. So adding Advance Passenger Information will speed up the check-in for flights and it can be either done at the time of booking or by contacting the Customer Services advisor after booing on (0204 502 1350).