Time to chuck out check-in

Simon Calder is tired of jumping through airline hoops

- Simon Calder

Weeks ago, I paid Lufthansa £185 for a return flight from London Heathrow to Munich. The fare is non-refundable. But with 30 hours before my flight home, I am obliged to go online to declare that, yes, I fully intend to travel.

It is a disagreeable process - the opposite of the James Bond villain’s line: “I’ve been expecting you.” Airlines across the world chorus: “Just because you’ve booked a flight doesn’t mean we’re expecting you.” Having logged in to the Lufthansa website, as a poor German speaker, I then had to scroll through the homelands on offer before happening on Vereinigtes Königreich (“United Kingdom”).

Then came the challenging questions. To the surprise of the German airline, I can reveal that I have not changed my nationality, gender, passport details or reason for travel since I flew out on Saturday.

Perhaps Lufthansa could use the details I provided ahead of the flight out to Germany? After painstakingly completing all the details from my British passport, it was surprising to be told that for the purposes of entering the UK “a national ID card of your home country is not sufficient”.