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Spains deadline for data collection approaches

British airlines operating flights to Spain have been warned this week that they will face fines of up to €60,000 (£42,000) per traveller if they fly without advance passenger information (API) systems in place and functioning.

The European Union recently instituted new regulations requiring a passengers passport information to be sent to the destination airport prior to the flight taking off, however Spain is the first country to actually implement these regulations and the first country to penalise airlines for non-compliance.

While the regulations may be new to Europe, they have been in place for airlines travelling to the United States since 2005. Carriers like British Airways developed the technology to comply with the American requirements at that time and can now use the system for European flights as well.

Other airlines are not so lucky. Ryanair's IT director has been working to develop the necessary technology in order to meet Spain's deadline. We added an API data module to our reservation system to process the information and on the front end we had to implement a capture mechanism during the booking process, he said.

EasyJet's airport systems manager, Simon Lamkin, is particularly concerned about minimising airport congestion while collecting the necessary information. Clearly we wanted to avoid collecting 150 pieces of passport information per flight at the airport because it would wreck check-in turnaround time, he said.

The regulations won't affect check-in time with most airlines, however some, like XL Airways and EasyJet, will be manually entering passenger information into computers while passengers check in while they work on faster technology to handle the issue.

The API regulations were designed to cut down on illegal immigration and address some terrorism concerns. All passengers from countries outside the Shengen area of Europe must comply with the regulations, including those from the UK.




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Jennifer Jones Editorial


27/09/2007


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