Landing Cards - Tunisian airports

PompeyPete

Any Travel Agents or main stream Holiday company people out there?

Why can't the main holiday companies arrange for Landing Cards to be issued at UK check-in, together with boarding passes.
Reason for asking is, on another forum I go on there have been several people saying that many holiday flights don't carry enough Landing Cards, or none at all, and don't make any in-flight broadcasts about the requirement for Landing Cards to be completed before passing through Immigration at their destination.
Consequently, at the destination the Arrivals Hall is full of dozens if not hundreds of 'headless-chickens' running around looking for these cards to fill in - avoidable chaos!
This creates a negative impression of the holiday company, and gets the holiday off on the wrong foot.
This could be easily solved by the holiday company (Thomson, TC etc) having boxes of these bog standard Landing Cards at their disposal, so that each of their UK airport check-in desks has sufficient supply to last the season. The punter can then fill in their card while they are sat in Departures waiting for their flight to be called. Might even increase the sale of biros at the airport!

Any advice please?

PompeyPete

Bump!
Any advice? I'm relying on MSE, and don't really want to go back to the other forum without anything to offer!

dzug1

Well a pure guess - but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Tunisian authorities don't let them have enough cards to do that

HXDave

Pete

This could be easily solved by the holiday company (Thomson, TC etc) having boxes of these bog standard Landing Cards at their disposal, so that each of their UK airport check-in desks has sufficient supply to last the season.

What is bog standard about landing cards? each country that require a landing card will have a different format. Therefore you would be asking each tour operator / airline to have sufficient supplies of landing cards to cover every destination they feature. Where would you propose these cards be stored. What about the smaller airlines - like Tunis Air, who will be operating into manchester this year. They only have 1 flight a week into Manchester during the summer, and the aircraft is not even based at the airport, so they probably wont even have an office.

Perhaps you could put this suggestion to the other forum. Airlines / tour operators are not obliged to offer / carry / issue landing cards, and therefore by issuing what they can during the flight, they are actually providing an additional service free of charge.

HXDave

PompeyPete

Dave, thanks.

HXDave wrote: »

What is bog standard about landing cards? each country that require a landing card will have a different format.

I shouldn't have said bog standard! What I meant was there will only be one type of Landing Card for a tourist into Tunisia. So it's not as though there would half a dozen cards with different formats.

HXDave wrote: »

Therefore you would be asking each tour operator/ airline to have sufficient supplies of landing cards to cover every destination they feature. Where would you propose these cards be stored. What about the smaller airlines - like Tunis Air, who will be operating into manchester this year. They only have 1 flight a week into Manchester during the summer, and the aircraft is not even based at the airport, so they probably wont even have an office.

Most (not all!) destinations for the main holiday carriers are in EU, and therefore UK passport holders aren't required to fill in a Landing Card. Even Turkey don't require UK passport holders to complete a Landing Card. As Tunis Air is the national carrier they really don't have an excuse for not having sufficient Landing Cards for each passenger. I'm not concerned with British Airways either. They only fly into Tunis-Carthage, which isn't a particularly busy airport.

The problem lies with Monastir (and Enfidha), where the sheer number of flights that hit the tarmac almost at the same time, including Air Berlin (who seem to arrive in convoy at some airports). The arrival area can be absolute chaos, especially if pax haven't had the opportunity to fill in their Landing Cards.

HXDave wrote: »

Perhaps you could put this suggestion to the other forum. Airlines / tour operators are not obliged to offer / carry / issue landing cards, and therefore by issuing what they can during the flight, they are actually providing an additional service free of charge.

Anything else to add before I revert back with your last paragraph?
Very grateful.
Pete

HXDave

Pete,

you could also get onto the Authorities in Tunisa to make the arrivals process easier at the airports. After all, it is really their problem, and not the tour operators / airlines. Plus, there are some desinations where you need to fill a form in, but you have to BUY IT, rather than being given it free.

HXDave

PompeyPete

Dave

Thanks, very grateful.

Pete