ESTA - Cautionary Tale

debsy42

We flew from London Heathrow to Orlando with Virgin last month. To cut a long story short a woman in the next row of seats to us was removed from the plane as her ESTA had been cancelled by the US authorities. She was distraught as she was travelling with a large family group for a holiday. We were all buckled and about ready to shut up shop when she was removed so it was quite scary that something like that could happen right up to the point of departure. I'd sort of assumed that once you were on the plane you were good to travel, seems it's not so cut and dried as i thought!

tacpot12

That is worrying, but even with the ESTA you can still be refused entry to the USA even when you arrive there, so you can only really relax when you pass through Immigration in the USA.

photome

Would be good to know the reason for it being cancelled , I very much doubt that anyone who doesn’t lie on the form would have their ESTA cancelled

Alfrescodave

How did you find out that her ESTA had been cancelled? I would have expected the problem to occur when she tried to pass through USA immigration.

NoodleDoodleMan

Last time we flew to the US most of the security stuff was done at departure prior to boarding - so it would be interesting to know how this scenario came about - allowing a revoked ESTA onboard.

We were still checked at arrival, however that was more or less a review of passports and normal questions by customs etc.

daveyjp

It appears pre flight US immigration checks are done before departure.

As an ESTA lasts for two years that's plenty of time for a refusal to be permitted entry to occur.

debsy42

Alfrescodave said:

How did you find out that her ESTA had been cancelled? I would have expected the problem to occur when she tried to pass through USA immigration.

She was right next to us in the next row so not hard to hear what was going on lol

A cabin crew lady came and asked her if she had an ESTA, she said she did and produced a print out of it. Seems the family had come from Holland I think and were transiting through Heathrow. After about 10 minutes the lady came back and said her ESTA had been cancelled and she couldn't travel and in fact the flight couldn't leave with her onboard. There was a debate about which family member would get off the flight to be with her and then a further delay whilst her luggage was found and removed.

I was really surprised that this could happen whilst the passenger was actually seated and onboard, the cabin crew told her she could try and apply for another ESTA but that could take up to 72 hours. The cabin crew couldn't tell her why it had been cancelled, only that they couldn't depart with her onboard.

IvanOpinion

Pure speculation, but maybe, within the last 10 years, she had visited, or gone on holiday, to a country that the US has deemed to be a sponsor of state terrorism (e.g. Cuba). That requires you to get a VISA instead of an ESTA.

Ben1989

An ESTA can be cancelled at any point. She's actually lucky she didn't arrive in the US and then not to be granted entry after a 9 hour flight. People have had ESTAs cancelled mid-flight.

It's up to the departing airline to ensure passengers can legally fly to the country, hence not being able to fly until she was off the aircraft. Her ESTA may have been valid up to the point of taking off. As IvanOpinion said it may have transpired she applied for an ESTA 18 months ago and travelled to Cuba 6 months ago which would cancel her ESTA. So it was either missed at check-in or the process of taking off has extra checks which produced this realisation.