Your Visa Is Digital. But Can the Airline Check It?

**HARRY GREWAL **

A passenger arrives at the airport with a valid passport, a confirmed ticket and an eVisa. But how does the airline know that the eVisa is authentic?

It’s an important question because before a passenger can board an international flight, the airline must confirm they hold the documents required to enter their destination country.

Get it wrong, and the airline can face fines and removal costs averaging US$9 000 per passenger. And the answer to how airlines verify eVisas might surprise you.

While travelers benefit from the simplicity of eVisa issuance, airlines suffer from the complexity of verification.

Proof that an eVisa has been issued might take the form of an email, PDF, or QR code. It might require a website query or a direct connection to a government database. In some cases, it’s just a manual verification of a supporting document. And, in practice, there is little in the way of a standard approach.

Imagine what it’s like to be the check-in agent? You need to be prepared for a passenger traveling anywhere in the world, potentially with transit points that also have visa requirements.

Nobody wants to remove the convenience of eVisas from travelers. But with over 100 countries issuing eVisas, a more efficient system of verification is needed.

Like many challenges that aviation has overcome, the solution lies in standardization. And the good news is that the basic tools to deal with eVisas have already been developed.

IATA’s Control Authorities Working Group has just published best practices for issuing and verifying digital authorizations to travel – Non-Physical Authorizations to Travel, Best Practices for Issuers and Verifiers (2026) (pdf) – building on work at ICAO. Two mechanisms are central to this approach.

The first is interactive Advance Passenger Information, or iAPI. During check-in, the airline sends passenger information electronically to the destination government and receives a real-time response.

This allows the government to confirm whether the passenger meets the requirements for the journey.

Airlines report documentation compliance rates up to 20 times higher for countries with comprehensive iAPI systems than for those relying on manual checks. However, fewer than 30 countries currently operate iAPI systems.

The second mechanism is the ICAO Digital Travel Authorization, or DTA. It provides standardized, digitally signed proof that an electronic authorization has been issued.

Instead of every country producing a different confirmation, the essential information is presented in a consistent format that can be authenticated.

Of course, there is a big difference between developing tools and using them. And with national security concerns in play, universal iAPI and DTA adoption will likely take some time. But that is not an excuse to do nothing in the interim period.

Governments have made considerable progress in digitizing visa applications and approvals. Verification now needs to catch up.

The question should no longer simply be: How do we issue a visa digitally? It must also be: How will an airline on the other side of the world know that it is valid?

*Harry Grewal is IATA director airports, infrastructure and customer experience