BRITAIN WAVES AIRSIDE TRANSIT VISA FOR UGANDANS AFTER EXODUS BY TRAVELERS
(Posted 19th January 2015)
Britain appears to have finally responded to counter the trend by Ugandan travelers destined for Canada, the United States and other third countries, to avoid flying via Heathrow and evade the need to pay for a transit Visa. Many travel savvy Ugandans are today opting to fly via ‘user friendly countries’ where connecting to their final destination has been and continues to remain free of such requirements.
After cases became known that holders of destination country Visas were on occasions denied transit Visa for Britain, a major shift to in particular Gulf carriers took place in Uganda. Transiting at the new Hamad International Airport in Doha, when flying with Qatar Airways to the US is easy and swift and the world’s newest mega airport offers an amazing array of shops and other services. Premium passengers meanwhile can enjoy their transit time in Qatar Airways’ Al Mourjan Business Lounge, home to a five star restaurant and state of the art facilities which take more than just one transit to fully explore. Others opted to fly with Emirates via Dubai and when Etihad launches their flights to Uganda in May, no doubt will they too absorb transit traffic, precisely to avoid the hassles and the cost of transit Visa, besides flying via a country which has progressively gained a reputation as being negatively inclined towards Africa.
In a move seen to support the British aviation industry has the Foreign and Commonwealth Office now waived the need of such cumbersome transit Visa, a change of tack which in the words of a leading travel agent in Kampala ‘comes late, perhaps too late. After all, my clients prefer to fly when they want to fly, not when a certain airline decides to fly out of Entebbe and Qatar and Emirates fly daily. They offer excellent services and a lot of destinations in North America. My clients rather take into account a longer journey via the Gulf than continue to be hassled and hounded by countries which treat them as guilty till proven innocent. Also, not to forget, are those travel advices which make us look bad. Kenya in particular has been hit hard. Have you heard of any such advice not to visit France? I am just saying, we Africans are treated with negativity by many of these countries and believe me, it is much easier to get a Visa to enter Dubai while in transit and spend a few days there, AND OUR MONEY, than to get into the UK’.
True sentiments those are in particular since Visa processing has long been outsourced and the main processing stations have been moved out of Uganda, out of East Africa even to other parts of the continent, making it even more cumbersome to get Visa. ‘I think they finally realized what economic damage their silly Visa rules did to them. Good for them, we can vote with our feet too. And yet they cry wolf when our economic focus looks East to India, Russia, Korea, China and Japan. As someone said last year in Kenya, choices have consequences’ added another travel agent when asked to comment on the lifting of the transit Visa requirements for Ugandans travelling via Heathrow.
What clearly was intended to be good news, and to some extent really is, has obviously touched some raw nerves and triggered some pointed comments from those who in the past were confronted day in and day out by bureaucratic rules which made travelling a modern day nightmare for Africans. Often prohibitive Visa requirements which resemble an audit on one’s life rather than extending a warm welcome to their countries can influence travel flows and once travelers have tasted the inflight services of the award winning Gulf carriers, and seen their glass, marble and steel new airports, few will be swayed to return to a place where they feel fundamentally not welcome.
