Sockhopper
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- Nov 16, 2008
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The problem that Nounou reported and solved with an airline in Perth, Austalia is very important for dual nationals of both a 'fee-owing' and 'non-fee-owing' country who fly to BA out of their 'fee-owing' country rather than from their 'non-fee-owing' one. This new problem has arisen as a result of airlines misinterpreting and misapplying the Argentine reciprocal fee to passengers who don't owe it. This has recently been discussed in the following thread on Tripadvisor's Buenos Aires' forum:
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowTopic-g312741-i979-k6136793-Any_new_Reciprocity_Fee_updates-Buenos_Aires_Capital_Federal_District.html
"Air Canada" wrongly made dual national EU/Canadian citizens pay the Argentine fee or lose their flights just because they were about to board flights in North America. By so doing, Air Canada which isn't a government blocked their right to present themselves to Argentine Immigration when they arrive in Argentina as EU citizens and thereby as non-fee-owers. By doing this, the airline created a false distinction between EU passport holders' citizenship status based on where their flights to Argentina happen to begin! The airline refused to recognize their EU passports although Argentina does so automatically as do all the countries involved or affected by this wrong policy. In this way, "Air Canada" while purporting to be ensuring passengers' compliance with Argentine law, in fact, rewrote that law to no longer be a reciprocal measure between countries at all and, instead, a penalty for having dual nationality when flying out of Canada on one's Canadian passport. These errors serve the airline's convenience.
My husband and I, both UK/Canadian nationals won't be affected by Air Canada's erred policy because we've recently moved to Europe and will no longer be flying to BA from Canada but from Europe from now on. My husband asked Air Canada if it would be correcting its policy. AC's reply doesn't even mention Argentina's fee or dual nationality but it did state that when someone buys a ticket, that sale automatically relieves this airline from all liability for makig a wrond decision for barring a person from flying so long as the airline thought it was interpreting and applyng a law or requirement properly. It says:
"It is therefore stated in our tariff, which forms part of the Contract for Carriage of each ticket, that "No liability shall attach to carrier if carrier in good faith determines that what it understands to be applicable law, government regulation, demand, order or requirement, requires that it refuse and it does refuse to carry a passenger." "
It's embarrassing to me as a Canadian that Canada's own airline thinks it's reasoable to block the rights of citizens of some 26 non-fee-paying countries in the EU to present themselves as such citizens when they visit Argentina; that it can pervert the relationship of EU ciizens with their own EU countries whenever those citizens fly to BA from Canada; and that it can rewrite an Argentine law in a way to do more than what it intends and in so doing, it can reverse the whole purpose and principle of a reciprocal law so as to apply it against countries against whom Argentina has nothing to reciprocate!
