`Sorry, SA won`t let you in`

Source: City Press, 03/01/2016

Tourists turned away at airports for not carrying unabridged birth
certificates


A £20 000 (R457 000) holiday of a lifetime was supposed to start on
Christmas Day for the Brooks family from Bristol, UK.


Instead, they were turned away at ¬Heathrow Airport after failing to
meet the new visa requirements set by the department of home
affairs.


"I did actually have birth certificates for both boys," Brooks told
City Press. "We couldn`t find the unabridged version of one of the
boys` birth certificates – it had his full name, but didn`t have the
parents` names on that one. For us, it was just so frustrating – we
stood there with our passports and birth certificates with both boys,
and we still couldn`t board."


Home affairs` new, stringent travel regulations came into effect on
June 1 and require that everyone younger than 18 must travel with an
unabridged birth certificate and, in the case of single parents,
affidavits from the other parent.


Over the busy Christmas season, this has seen a number of foreign
families turned away at airports.
"You get there on Christmas Day and then it`s, `Oh, sorry, you`re not
getting on the plane,`" Brooks explained. "[British Airways] says, `If
we let you on that plane, they`re going to put you straight back on
the next flight coming back here, and we`re going to get fined.`
…

It seemed ridiculous – there`s so much red tape."


Brooks told City Press that there had been five other families on the
same flight who were turned away because they also did not have the
correct paperwork. City Press was ¬unable to confirm this figure with
the airline.


"There was another family there ... the wife is a lawyer, and she
brought photocopies of the unabridged birth certificate, which she
thought was good enough, but she wasn`t allowed on the flight either,"
said Brooks.


Brooks said his two sons, aged nine and 11, were "cricket fanatics"
and the family planned to spend 15 days in Cape Town, and planned to
watch the England-South Africa test match currently under way. With
business class tickets, ¬accommodation, car rental and tickets for the
cricket, the holiday cost the Brooks family ¬almost £20 000.


Once they had obtained an unabridged birth certificate, they were able
to fly to Cape Town on Tuesday, where they were once again told by
British Airways staff that "lots of families" were in the same
predicament.


Last week, a UK newspaper reported that 10 families a day were being
turned away from UK airports as a result of the home affairs
requirements. In response, the department hit back, calling the claims
"baseless and inaccurate, stemming largely from ¬exaggeration and
distortion of facts".


On Thursday, home affairs spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete told City
Press: "There are thousands of thousands of people coming to the
country without a problem."


In an unprecedented move, the department decided to ¬release the ports
of entry statistics for travellers arriving from the UK. Between
November 1 and December 23, there was a 3% increase, from 79 998 in
2014 to 82 772 this year.


Despite this, the Southern African Tourism Services Association said
the regulations were hurting the industry.


On Wednesday, the association`s CEO, David Frost, said: "We should be
growing our key market in double digits with the exchange rate we have
at the moment."


Tshwete, however, said home affairs was not responsible for tourism
figures: "The requirements are well explained and thousands of people
have come to South Africa without a problem. The compliance rate is
above 90%."


Asked to clarify if this meant that up to one in 10 people weren`t
meeting the requirements, Tshwete said: "I`m saying a large number of
people come to the country versus those who get rejected."


Tshwete said that since it was the airlines turning people away and
not home affairs officials, only the airlines would be able to confirm
exact figures.


City Press contacted British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, two of the
major airlines flying from the UK, but both said they were unaware of
any major issues.


"We have done everything we can to let families know, and we recommend
all customers check the visa requirements of the country they are
travelling to before they leave for the airport," said a British
Airways spokesperson.