My UK ETA unexpected experience yesterday flying from Sicily to UK

Unfortunately there seems to be confusion about the ETA.

All I can advise after years of traveling is to always maintain a paper trail. I make copies of passport, drivers license, emails confirming hotel reservations and only had one instance in tiny Italian hotel in a town virtually unknown to most tourists. Took some finagling and finding someone who spoke English to resolve the situation.

So, by using travel wallets I keep a paper trail.

Good grief. I’m flying into Bologna starting today, and out of Milan, both with Heathrow layovers so I’m sure I won’t need it but I just printed up my confirmation email with the reference number on it just in case I’m asked and my phone glitched.

Thanks for this! I’ll print mine up.

I flew into the UK three weeks ago from Iceland and no one asked about an ETA.

Pat, thanks for letting us know.

Good grief...

I'm very confused. I thought the most current info said that travellers transiting through Heathrow did not need the UK ETA. What am I missing here ? Thanks

it is actually strange.

The ETA is tied to your passport number. Any plane headed to the UK will send it's flight manifest ahead of time. If there was a problem, I'd think the computer wouldn't allow the passenger to get a boarding pass unless they could prove they have one.

it is actually strange.

The ETA is tied to your passport number. Any plane headed to the UK will send it's flight manifest ahead of time. If there was a problem, I'd think the computer wouldn't allow the passenger to get a boarding pass unless they could prove they have one.

In this case it may just be an misinformed gate agent.

Thanks for the heads up, Pat. I am going to print my confirmation email, just in case.

I'm very confused. I thought the most current info said that travellers transiting through Heathrow did not need the UK ETA. What am I missing here ? Thanks

Hopefully Pat will clarify, but her original post suggests she was flying "to" London, not transiting...

Yes, yesterday I was flying to London as my destination, not in transit. The airline counter agent did not ask me whether I was staying in London or in transit. My ticket was to London and when I gave her my US passport she asked if I had a visa or an ETA. I am visiting several countries on this trip. I knew I needed the ETA for UK and had obtained it, just hadn't thought about having to provide proof prior to boarding my flight to London. It seems travellers are having different experiences, some are being asked, some not, and I attribute that to the newness of it all, and as said above, it may depend on particular airline policy. I was curious as to what others were experiencing and wanted to give a heads up to others who may want to print out that authorization email prior to travel, based on my personal experience just yesterday.

Thanks for reporting this. I just went and found my email and saved it sothat it is handy for my trip.

Thanks for the clarification, from the Pat in San Diego.

I knew I needed the ETA for UK and had obtained it, just hadn't thought about having to provide proof prior to boarding my flight to London.

Because they specifically tell you when you get your ETA that you won't need to provide proof ! (I.e., you were behaving logically given HMG information, which I know you know).

Therefore that makes your reporting this incident very eye-opening. Thank you for taking the time to post about this.

Hope your time in Sicily was good and that you are now enjoying your time in London.

Pat, thanks for reporting your experience. I will have that handy for a trip this summer to Scotland. As Kim's post indicated I thought I was behaving logically (!!!) and didn't print anything out. I'm sure I saved the email to my Scotland travel folder in my emails but I will make sure.

During Covid I had to tell the local airport's desk agent that no, a Covid test was not needed for me to enter France, so I will be prepared for them to possibly not have updated information. I'll transit thru ATL with a direct flight to Edinburgh so will assume they are used to dealing with this.

editing to add: Just added screenshots of the approval to my Notes app and the Documents album I have set up in Photos.

In 2016, my husband and I were living in Canada. We each had work visas. There was a notation about this in our US passports, and we also had official paperwork. (Presumably, our visas were also digitally tied to our passports because we never had to show anything when reentering Canada.) When checking in for a flight back to Vancouver from Barcelona via Heathrow, we were asked by the British Airways agent to show our work visa paperwork. The information in our passports was not enough for this agent. Luckily, we had brought all of the paperwork along with us, and we were able to fly home. During our time living in Vancouver, we also took a few flights to and from the States, but we were never asked about our work permits during those check in experiences.

It seems like easyJet was trying to cover themselves in case you were denied entry. Even though the British government doesn't need to see a written confirmation of your ETA, an airline might not feel the same way. It's always best to be overprepared in these sorts of situations.

I just flew into London last Thursday, and had no problems with mine, or my two grandkids ETA. We didn't have to show them since they are linked to our passports.

I've been in the UK twice so far this year, flying Singapore Airlines, and haven't been asked for evidence that I've applied for an ETA. And indeed most passengers use kiosk checkin, so clearly it is linked to passport.

But this is a good reminder to at least hang on to a digital copy of everything just in case...

When you arrive at immigration at any UK airport, the immigration officer has access to the government records linked to your passport, so they can see immediately that you have an ETA. Presumably the check-in desk at foreign airports doesn’t have that access- they are, after all, working for that airport or airline and possibly dont have access to UK government databases.

My understanding is that they do have access to this, in the sense that when you submit your Advance Passenger Information, the system returns a response to the carrier of Board, Check or No Board.

In the case check, the passenger may have a visa that is not an evisa, or Right of Abode and therefore not need an ETA, or may be a dual national who has not submitted their UK passport details in their API. Or they may have applied for an ETA and not yet received a decision. Or a few other scenarios.

This article covers this:

https://ops.group/blog/uk-eta-bizav-guide/

Or it may just be Sicily.

:Paper trail ALWAYS. Fellow traveler in Italy had cell phone stolen which contained everything except her passport.
Hotel reservations #. Train reservation #. Etc. Of course this will NOT happen to you!