PASSENGERS travelling to the United States who do not provide airlines with exact addresses for their first-night accommodation could be barred from flights. New rules to be introduced on October 4 insist that airlines have a list of first-night addresses or face £1,900 fines per passenger flown to the US.

In such instances airlines will be responsible for returning passengers to the UK without them being allowed to leave their destination airport. Airlines, including British Airways, Virgin and BMI, are scrambling to comply with the US Department of Homeland Security’s new rules, but admit that they are struggling to make contact with all their passengers in time to meet the deadline.

This could affect people on fly-drives who have not booked accommodation, backpackers without specific plans, and those who simply intend to be met by a friend or family member at the destination airport but who have mislaid or do not have their addresses.

Such travellers are being advised to make first-night bookings and then get in touch with airlines or travel agents with addresses in advance of their flight.

Robert Mocny, the deputy director of US-Visit, a national security-enhancing arm of the US Department of Homeland Security, told Times Travel that it is the “responsibility of airlines to collect addresses”. He said that the rule change comes in response to some of the 9/11 bombers vaguely putting “Marriott, New York” when they arrived in the country.

From October 4, passengers will need to supply a full address with street number, street, town, state and the postcode. But Mocny said immigration officials would not have a “heavy hand” in the first six months of the rules.

This “softly softly” start-up approach means that airlines such as BA and Virgin will not initially offload passengers who are unable to supply full addresses.

However, both airlines and the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) recommend that people comply with the rules, which are expected to come into full force by about April next year.

A BA spokesman said: “We will not be off-loading people, as there is a period of grace. They will travel. But we are educating customers to supply the new information.”

BA has changed its website to alert passengers visiting the US to the need to give a full first-night address, under a “Manage my booking” link. Virgin is working on a similar system.

Susan Parsons, the manager for trade relations at Abta, said: “The US has introduced all of this at short notice. People need to be aware of these changes.”

US Embassy visa information (www.usembassy.org.uk)

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Key dates for passport requirements for the United States

June 26, 2005
It is now a requirement for all visitors to possess a machine-readable passport for travel to the US. This has two lines of letters, numbers and chevrons at the bottom of the personal information page. All British passports should now be of this type.

October 4, 2005
Visitors must provide details of their intended place of stay (including postcode) before boarding the plane. Previously, they could supply basic hotel information, or write “fly-drive”, on green I94 visa waiver forms supplied on board planes.

October 26, 2005
All new passports issued after this date must include a digital photograph (British passports are now issued with these). Travellers with machine-readable passports issued before October 26 may continue to use them until they expire, even if the photograph is the old, pasted-in type.

October 26, 2006
Passports issued beyond this date must include an integrated computer chip, capable of storing data, photographs and other biometric information such as fingerprints and iris scans. These “e-passports” will be identified by a computer chip symbol on the cover. Machine-readable and digital photograph passports already issued will continue to work.

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