Well it says in the blurb on the site that if it's incorrect or not filled in you cannot fly. Which of course put the fear of god into me which is why i'm then on here double checking it

Woody's girl,

me too !

Chris

if you don't complete the answers then it would be obvious to the airline's system and it would alert the checkin/gate supervisor and you wouldn't be allowed on (with many countries the details have to be provided a number of hours before you fly so at the gate may be too late even if it was a mistake). If you put wrong answers in that met the right format it might trick the airline system - but they send it to the police/security service of the countries involved so they could spot things like passport number not matching the other details. If done in time they could get you stopped before boarding. If they spot in whilst you are in the air your reception might be interesting. If you get that far without a discrepancy being spotted and are flying within the Schengen area you'd probably get away with it - but UK isn't in Schengen. Once you land and go through immigration they often scan the machine readable code on your passport, it's possible that the data from that will be compared to what you gave in advance and if it doesn't match it could get interesting again, depends on the country. Some countries are very heavy on API, Spain and USA for instance, but others like Germany don't like it at all.

The question I'd like answered is what happens if youa re flying to a country that doesnlt want it but with an airline which couldnl;t be bothered to refine it's systems so demands you supply it. Easyjet do know the difference (they don't ask if flying to Germany) but others aren't as clever.

I think Countrys outside of Europe must be requesting this now, as well as supplying it for Switzerland and Spain this year, we also had to supply it for Egypt. I wonder if it will become a worldwide thing over the next few years.

I didn't realise you had to supply this for Egypt and submitted the data about 36 hours before we were due to fly out, but didn't have any problems on departure or entry thank goodness, so hopefully it got forwarded to the right people in time.

Cosmos had sent me a reminder email but it had landed in the Spam!

Do people flying from the UK have to give it for Portugal ?

OH flew from Germany to Portugal last month, he only had hand luggage and never showed his passport once. I had to show it when I handed my case in at the fast drop but it wasn't scanned, just looked at. We didn't have to submit API's

I believe it came in for UK -Portugal in 2009, although whether the Portugeuse do anything with it is another question.

I think there's something in the German constitution that raises legal issues over it's use, there's still a lot of people around with memories of life under the Nazis/Stasi so the idea of the state collecting detailed data on personal movements is a bit politically sensitive. The last time I checked with Lufthansa they only collect it on USA routes, I asked TUIfly once and the person that answered didn't even understand the question!

Yes, I had to give it when I flew with Lufthansa to New York a couple of years ago but I'm not sure about anywhere else though Lufthansa probably have all of my details on file anyhow.

Advance passenger information is now required when flying, we've done it several times before and I'm sure I will have done it, but just had a panic and now wonder if I have. Is there some way of checking if I've submitted it ??



Thanks

Steve

Panic over, and for future info I was able to check by putting the booking preference into the link from the last holiday for doing the API and it told me the details were done....

phew !



Steve

Hi Steve

Not sure if this applys in your case, but I recently went on a Thomas Cook holiday and wanted to double check if I had put in my API information, I logged into the area on their web-site as though to enter it and it came up confirming that I had already done it.

Maybe it is the same with all of the TO's ? Think I had the same with easyjet. I am paranoid about forgetting to do it, think they will off-load me or something, so end up re-checking.

Doe

LOL we posted at the same time.

Thanks Doe, yes it does appear they all do the same....

We booked our package Holiday with My Travel and I'm trying to submit my API. The package includes Monarch flights and according to MY Travels terms we have to log on to the Monarch website, entre our flight ref from our e tickets and give our API from there.
However
When logging on to the Monarch site it says you can only manage your booking on there if you booked with Monarch and so obviously we can't log on.
I now have no clue what to do. I've tried ringing but am in a long queue and at 10p a minute I don't want to be there for too long only to find out I should have done something different.
Does anyone else have any experience of this and know what I should be doing?
Many thanks

Can anyone tell me if we need to submit API for the Eurostar?

HI corinne76
If you use your passport you have to fill in an API
Roger

I wouldn't worry too much if you can't complete the API ahead of time. It will be taken at check in from your passport if not before.

luci

cool, thanks

Corinne

Passengers do not have to provide API when travelling by Eurostar

Judith