Penalties and Detension Costs

The requirements of the UK immigration regulations are onerous and can result in draconian penalties being administered, if not followed to the letter.

The UK continues to be a country that attracts many asylum seekers.

Although airlines take great care to ensure that only those passengers with valid travel documents board their aircraft, it is still the case that some passengers inbound to the UK either destroy or dispose of their passports and then seek asylum on arrival. This can leave the airline concerned open to a penalty of GBP2,000 for landing a passenger without proper documentation.

Even more galling are those instances where a passenger arrives correctly documented with passport and visa etc, but whom the immigration authorities choose not to believe in respect of their purpose of travel; again the airline is held liable to repatriate them at their own costs.

A further GBP2,000 penalty can be incurred if the carrier has to pay for detention costs and finally, if the authorities decide to deport the asylum seeker, the carrier is responsible for arranging this and if the country of origin is not one to which the airline flies then further expense is incurred in buying tickets on another carrier.

Airlines are liable to pay for up to 14 days worth of detention costs, which can amount to GBP2,000. BAR UK takes the view that government should be able to decide within 72 hours, or three days, as to whether the passenger should be admitted or not and consequently is campaigning for the current requirement to pay for up to 14 days detention costs to be reduced to 72 hours.