I have kind of a strange question. If you have an international flight with a domestic layover (say, San Diego to LA to Rio de Janeiro), during which you change planes, is there any reason you would need to be in possession of your passport on the first leg of the trip?
The situation, in case you’re wondering, is that a friend of mine and I are traveling to Brazil in a couple of weeks. I live in Houston and he lives in Brownsville, so he is flying Brownsville-Houston-Rio, meeting me in Houston. You have to have a visa to travel to Brazil, for which an application has to be made at the Brazilian consulate in Houston. You don’t have to apply IN PERSON yourself, but SOMEONE has to submit your documents in person. So he sent them to me (including his passport) so I could get the visa for him. Do I need to mail the passport-with-visa back to him, or is there any reason I couldn’t just give it to him when he lands in Houston and we go on to the international portion of the trip?
Talk with the airline you plan to fly. It’s been my experience when I flew like this the airline insisted on seeing my passport and my ticket at every stage of the journey. You may want to contact the Passport office, too.
If all of this is too much, just FedEx their passport and visa to your friend now.
Does your friend have one ticket (with two boarding passes) from Brownsville to Rio? If so, you’ll need to send him back the visa and passport because he’ll need it to board the first plane. If he has two separate tickets for the domestic portion of the trip and the international one, then he can de-board in Houston where you can then give him his papers.
When I’ve done similar flights (USA to USA to Canada), I’m pretty sure that the gate agents at my originating city have checked whether I had my passport with me. (Traveling to Canada doesn’t require a visa.) I would be shocked if they didn’t check that you had all your paperwork in order before getting on the first plane. After all, they’re on the hook for flying you back to the US if you get denied entry into the other country, with all the extra expense and hassle that entails.
Is the Brownsville to Houston leg on the same airline as Houston to Rio? Is Rio shown on the itinerary? If so, he almost certainly needs to show his passport with the visa for Brazil when boarding in Brownsville.
When I fly New York to Panama with a stopover in the US, every airline checks to make sure I have a visa for Panama when boarding in NY. (I need a visa because I live in Panama. Otherwise I would have to have a return or onward ticket.)
If the Brownsville-Houston leg is on a separate airline, and not on the same itinerary, he may be able to get away with just showing picture ID for that leg. But assume that you are asking this because this is not the case.
If the trip has been booked as one journey, then your friend will stay airside in Houston when he transfers between flights. In this case, he will need his passport from first check in as it is seen as one international trip, despite the layover.
If the two portions of the trip have been booked separately, such that your friend will need to go through to land side of the airport to check into the second portion of his trip, then he won’t need his passport.
Absolutely send back his passport. He will need it for an international flight itinerary.
Is it possible that he could clear TSA in Brownsville without a passport? Sure, but I wouldn’t count on it. It will be an enormous hassle, I promise you. i don’t mean to be insulting, but it’s not really a question. Send him his passport back, seriously.
Assuming this is a single ticket, another problem that could pop up is that the airline’s obligation is to get you to the end destination only. If his flight out of Brownsville were to be canceled, the airline would have the right to send him through another city at its discretion, because he doesn’t actually have a ticket to go to Houston.
But not being able to get on the plane would be even worse, and is much more likely.
Are Americans allowed to have two American passports? In the uk you are allowed to have a duplicate passport to accommodate situations like this. You send one off to get a visa and travel on the duplicate in the meantime. Also very useful if you travel in the Middle East a lot as some countries won’t allow you in if you have a stamp from Israel and vice versa.
Things seem to be quite different in Europe. On my last trip (Geneva-Copenhagen-Oslo) no one checked me for any identification at any point in the trip. None at all. And in the trip before, I was completely unchecked on the Geneva-Frankfurt leg, but (I think) they checked my passport at boarding for the flight to Delhi.
Maybe it’s because us Swiss are so trustworthy
But for the OP, I agree with the others, send your friend his passport.
A passport is needed both for confirmed travel and submission for foreign visa applications simultaneously;
The primary passport is held by a foreign government or embassy and the applicant has confirmed travel; and/or
The applicant has confirmed travel plans to a foreign country which will deny a visa or entry to the bearer of a passport containing markings or visas showing travel to certain other countries.
Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and bunch of other European countries not mentioned in your post are part of the Schengen Area, and have abolished passport control at their mutual borders. Depending on how you check in on a leg that’s wholly within Schengen but is part of a trip that will take you outside of Schengen, you might not need to show your passport, but, as you experienced, that is certainly not the case once you need to board the flight that crosses the Schengen border.
Sure, I know about Schengen quite well. But that doesn’t really explain to me why no one bothered to check my identity. How do they know that I didn’t kill the real Orville Mogul on his way to the airport and steal his ticket?
My experience: (USA to Canada or Vice Versa, some overseas…)
If the entire itinerary is one flight, they will check you in for the full flight, check your luggage through and issue you a boarding pass for each leg.
This is why they need your passport at checking. To issue a boarding pass to the destination country, they need to inspect your passport and ensure it has the necessary documentation/visa. (Airline is on the hook for flight back, plus possible fines, if they deliver you without proper documents) While boarding an international flight, large aircraft, is not the time to be giving each passenger’s ID the third degree. They do that at check-in and the boarding check I assume is just to be sure picture and name match boarding pass.
If your friend is in transit he will not “check in” for the last leg.
He may luck out and have someone either forget to check passport/visa, or accept his excuse. Or they may allow him to take the first leg and check in again - but presumably then he’d have to retrieve his luggage and go through the whole check in again at Houston. Why take the chance?
Joining the consensus. If there is a single Brownsville-IAH-Rio booking with multiple flight boarding passes, it’s almost certain that the travel documents will be required from the starting point (the reservation will be flagged in the system). In any case why take chances.
Several years back nations tightened up boarding rules in part to pass the cost of deportations to airlines who boarded passengers without the proper documents. So, the cost to fly them back, when they are refused entry, now falls entirely on the airline, when they are refused for not having a valid visa etc.
In response airlines will not board passengers who do not have every T crossed and I dotted, as it were. He will not likely get onto the plane without his passport, I’m afraid.
Two years back I was flying out of JFK, on a flight into Bangkok and then, 60 days later, out of Singapore. (Totally allowed and doable with the right visa, ticket etc!) I had a 6o day visa for Thailand, but the airline was hesitant to let me board without an air ticket taking me out of Thailand (I would leave the country overland!) in fact, they tried very hard to tell me I MUST purchase an air ticket out of Thailand in order to board, even if I just cancelled it upon arrival! We were two people, so the cost would be quite high. Not to mention we knew from experience this was nonsense, and the fellow clearly didn’t understand that our visas meant the Thai government had already vetted us and would not refuse us entry.
He must have been new or something. How do you end up at the check in counter to a major international airline, at JFK, and still not understand how an international Visa works? I eventually asked to speak to someone else. Who saw in an instant that we were fine to board. He began lecturing the first employee before we were out of earshot.
THAT’S how fussy the airlines are about insuring they don’t have to pay to fly home someone refused entry. Your friend WILL need his passport to board an international flight, get it in the mail already!
Because in most European countries checking the identity of every traveller isn’t policy. Why? Because doing so would cost a lot of money, be a big hassle for travellers and do next to nothing to increase flight safety.
