"Language testing" to travel on airline

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I would appreciate any input or further information about a difficult incident that happened to us while checking in to fly home from a brief holiday. I find flying and authority figures hard enough, without the official-level harassment that happened:

We went from Ireland to Spain for one week, without any problems, on the national Irish airline. On returning from our holiday, the check-in staff in the Spanish airport insisted that my Greek wife must complete a "language test" in both English and Greek to prove that she was not travelling on forged documents. She did so, but was very angry because they said that all Greeks must complete the tests, and she wanted identification details of the staff and contact details of the airline to make a formal complaint. The staff refused to identify themselves or provide company contact details and they also refused to provide a copy of the language test to include with the complaint, although they had assured her that she could take a photocopy before she had completed it.

I photographed the test, at which point the staff called the police. The police told my wife to delete the photo, and then told the check-in staff to check us in to the flight.

Greece, Spain and Ireland are all part of the European Union, which guarantees free travel to citizens of all member states. Greece and Spain are both Schengen members, which guarantees free travel with minimal documentation and without harassment. It seems to be discriminatory that all Greek citizen should be selected in this way. The test also seems to have the potential to distress many other groups of people - with low literacy, limited English, dyslexia, or anxiety.

Yeah that sounds pretty weird and frustrating, but I can't say I know anything at all about airlines in the EU because I've never been there.

probably the officials being douchebags because of the riots in greece.

(Thread moved from Autism discussion to Random)

Free travel and migration between EU countries is part of EU law! I would seriously consider filing an official complaint against the airline for requiring confirmation of nationality as, by doing so, they seem to be violating EU legislation; an offence that s not to be sneezed at.

Indeed. She's a Greek and EEA/EU citizen (regardless of my feelings on the EU); that's the end of it if her documents are in order. Why should they want her to speak English? Sounds like an abusive practice if you ask me and they haven't got a leg to stand on.

StuartN: do you still have the memory card (undeleted and not overwritten)? Do not delete it; you can recover the photo.

The other point I can think of is that they have no right to make her speak English as a) English isn't the official language of Greece, and b) many Greeks don't even speak any English and c) she's an EU/EEA citizen. What if she had started speaking to them in Irish (Irish is one of the two official languages of Ireland)? She fulfills the point of the test but also cocks a snook at them.

The EU isn't as far away as you think. It's only around four or five hours away to France (Guadeloupe/Martinique) from Florida, though you probably can't get flights from Miami).

If an airline carries a passenger that is denied entry to a country they have to meet the cost of returning the passenger, obviously they wish to avoid this as there are costs involved for them.

As your wife has an EU passport then she would be allowed entry into any EU member state. From Spain to Ireland there would be passport control at both the departure and arrival airport as Ireland is not part of the Schengen Area.

The only reason I can think of for your wife being made to undergo a language test would be if there is a high number of fake Greek passports in circulation. In this case (assuming ability in the Greek language is a requirement for citizenship) the test should only have been in the Greek language, and not have any English language component.

I would also question the ability of Spanish airport staff to mark the test (unless it is multiple choice, or has single word answers).

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Despite the Schengen Area officially having unified border control policies the degree to which it is enforced varies widely, broadly in line with national stereotypes. Entering Italy the official was reading a magazine, occasionally looking up at the arriving passengers, in Germany the passport was scanned, the photo compared with the traveller.

Yes, indeed the photo is available - an extract of the farce is here http://imgur.com/z6FDm and the text of the test shown in the photo is below (the Greek version is very similar). It is not clear what the questions are intended to determine, especially as many Greek passport holders do not speak English, many do not speak Greek and some do not speak either Greek or English.

I feel that the questionnaire is a form of harassment, and possibly a form of ethnic profiling intended to restrict the movements of "the wrong sort" of migrant. It really makes no difference to ourselves beyond inconvenience and upset, but there are people that this form of selection will have a serious harmful effect on.

LANGUAGE TEST: ENGLISH

1. Please write your forenames and family name in capital letters.
2. Please underline the numbers twelve and sixty-five:
12 18 24 37 41 49 57 65 73 89
3. Please write down in the following order: Your date of birth, place of birth and today's date.
4. Please point to the last page and to your photograph in the document before you.
5. Please show me any cash you have in your possession.
6. Please skecth a ladder and a triangle.
7. Please read out the script on the page of your document indicated.
8. What is your travel desrination?
9. Please write the following numbers in figures:
Eight hundred and seventy-seven, four hundred and twenty-one.

Date/Place:

Actually, I am interested in the response of other people with autistic spectrum disorders. As I said originally, "the test also seems to have the potential to distress many other groups of people - with low literacy, limited English, dyslexia, or anxiety". I found the experience very hard, and imagine that this form of testing would also impact other people with ASD. Civilian desk-jockeys on a power-trip, police and border control officials do not respond well to logic, while people with ASD do not respond well to threats and intimidation.

Eh? This leaves me baffled. 99.5% of the population of Greece speaks Greek, so I would think the likelihood of them being able to speak neither Greek nor English would be pretty low (given as the use of at least one of these languages would be pretty vital in order for them to have a comfortable life within the Greek state). The number of non-Greek speakers in Greece can't be more than 60,000 people out of 11 million.

Only two-thirds of Greeks live within the Greek state - there are 7 million Greeks outside Greece according to the World Council of Greeks (http://en.sae.gr/). The latest government census recorded that 3 million of these hold a Greek passport. Centres of Greek diaspora include Egypt, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Italy etc in addition to the big populations in Melbourne (the second largest Greek city after Athens!) and London. My daughter is a Greek national and (shame on her!) speaks very poor Greek and would be unable to write in Greek - the check-in staff stated that both tests, English and Greek, had to be completed.

However, the main point is why "language tests" (for any language) are being applied by civilian check-in staff as a pre-condition to board a flight to Ireland, in circumstances that are fairly humiliating and became very upsetting, with police intervention. My wife is a fluent English- and Greek-speaking professional, employed and resident in Ireland for over ten years, travelling entirely within the EU on a recent biometric EU passport. Most people would be in a less fortunate position, with the potential for serious ethnic discrimination. There is an indication that the test originates with the UK Borders Agency, and it is probably applied for entry to the UK also. I do not know yet whether the test is applied to people travelling on documents from any other countries, and all the agencies that might have an answer are closed over the weekend.

I have no problem with border security and checking the validity of migrant travel, but the questionnaire (above) really does seem to serve some other purpose than enhancing border security or testing the authenticity of a passport.

I have checked with the Irish immigration services and with the border agency today who said that there is no language test of any kind for travel to Ireland, and that the tests are a part of internal security procedures used by the airline (Aer Lingus, the national carrier).

So how can an airline manage to introduce a policy that humiliates and frustrates their own passengers, and target that humiliation at the nationals of one particular country? Whatever happened to the right of free travel within the EU, and equality on the basis of nationality, religion, etc?

I understand where you're coming from now - you're right. I didn't realise quite how large the Greek diaspora was. And yes, I can see the potential for serious discrimination for an Australian using a Greek passport, for instance.

It sounds like you want to take this up with Aer Lingus then!

We have had an interesting response from the handling agents who staff the check-in desks for the airline. It states that this treatment of passengers is their policy, and implies that they also target Portuguese and Italian passengers:

Fortunately, I don't travel much, but my wife is going to have the pleasure of dealing with this quite frequently.

This story is in the papers and on the radio today. The Irish Times has a very sober piece at http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 53577.html

You can comment anonymously / pseudonymously (please do) on an Indymedia article at http://www.indymedia.ie/article/101526

Boards.ie have a consumer issues thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthre ... 2056574908 and it has hit the Twitter-sphere.