PnrGo Webinar: New UK GAR – recording and Q&A

If you submit GAR manually via the web portal, you have to input the ‘responsible person’ in one of the submission steps. This can be a specific person or simply your OPS team. You will be asked to provide their contact details. The UK will use these details to inform you about the NO BOARD status.

If you are using the automated GAR service offered by PnrGo, the UK will reach you via the email and the contact number of your OPS team, provided during your onboarding process with us. If you are not sure what email address and phone number you have given to us, please get in touch with our support team and we will be happy to help!

This can happen. There might be some scheduled maintenance works on the UK side. This will cause both the sGAR portal and the system-to-system connections (offered by data providers) to stop working (e.g. in June, the systems were down for the whole day).

In such a case, you need to go back to the ‘old’ way of submission, and send your GAR via email. If you are using PnrGo, we will do it on your behalf, switching to e-mail submissions for the time being. Bear in mind that when the systems are down, the GAR reference number is not issued.

It seems that for the first 3 months after the change in requirements, the UK mostly issued warnings. But it should not be treated as a ‘rule’ so let’s just call it a ‘grace’ period.

The UK regulations actually provide for a maximum penalty of £50,000 for carrying a passenger without permission. But the fines can be lower, of course. Theoretically, they start at 5,000 GBP for first time breaches with mitigating factors. From what we’ve heard from our customers, even minor mistakes, like a misspelled name (letters switched), can result in a fine, although we do not have the information what was the amount of penalty in that case. We highly advise you to double-check the data you enter into the system (regardless of whether you use sGAR or just input data in the FMS integrated with PnrGo). The UK is quite strict in this matter and even a small mistake can have big consequences.

No, it’s not required. But if you’re flying from Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man to the UK (or the other way round) – then GAR is needed both for the UK and the other location.

If there is a diversion due to bad weather, then this is an exceptional case which will not result in penalties. What you have to do is contact the UK Border Force and let them know that you are diverting your flight. But, of course, this is not a reason to turn around, submit a new GAR, and wait for 2 hours!

Exactly. If you have a last-minute change, you have the option to call the local unit of the UK Border Force, inform them about the ‘major’ change, and ask if you can still depart on time. They may grant you permission to depart, but from our experience, this hardly ever happens. Also, there would be no confirmation message or email in such a case.

Yes, a destination change, even for a ferry flight, requires you to re-submit / update your GAR and delay the flight for 2 hours. You can try calling the UK Border Force to request their permission to depart on time but such permission is generally hard to obtain.

Yes, from the moment you send the final update via sGAR, or your data provider’s system (e.g. PnrGo) resubmits your GAR automatically, you need to wait for two hours to depart. If you are using PnrGo, you can count this time from the moment you received an email notification that your GAR had been submitted successfully.

We have had the opportunity to speak with the person responsible for implementing these legal rules in the UK. Basically, they need at least 2 hours to ensure enough time for their screening procedures. This is to make sure that you will not bring any ‘blacklisted’ individuals to the UK. It’s the local law and we have to obey it if we want to fly to their country. Otherwise, they have the right to issue penalties.

This depends on when the final version of GAR was submitted. For example: you sent the first GAR 12 hours before the flight, and there have been no changes – so this is your ‘final’ GAR. In this case, you can depart 1 hour earlier because the time between your GAR submission and departure is more than 2 hours. So this falls into the window for ‘small’ time changes (this window works both ways – that is, for delays and early departures). Just make sure you do not violate the 2-hour window between your final GAR submission and your departure.

What we look at here is the time of departure.

We will give you an example which sits in the middle between the ‘change of date’ and a ‘small delay’. Let’s say you have a flight planned for 10 pm but you are delaying it for 3 hours so it’s now scheduled for the next day – it can still be considered as a ‘delay’ and not a ‘reschedule’. If the delay is larger, then submit a new GAR in this case.

In PnrGo, everything within a 3-hour window from STD is considered a ‘delay’ and not a ‘reschedule’. This was established with the UK during the development of our system-to-system connection, and so, in such cases, we do not submit a new GAR.

The UK requires a slightly different approach – you should input the single name (regardless of whether it’s the given name or the last name) into the ‘surname’ field and put ‘unknown’ instead of the ‘first/given name’.

With PnrGo, this happens automatically. Our system will report the single name as a ‘surname’ and will input ‘unknown’ in place of the given name. So if you use our services, you can just leave the first name or the last name field empty, following the MRZ data from the passport, and we will handle this.

It depends. If this title is not included in the Machine Readable Zone, you do not input it in GAR. If it’s included in the MRZ, then you should input it in GAR too, as part of the name.

When it comes to special characters in names and surnames, it’s best to refer to the Machine Readable Zone in the passport and follow that spelling. Generally, hyphens (-) can be allowed, but sometimes in the MRZ they are also removed.

If you submit GAR with PnrGo and you input any disallowed characters, our system will sanitize your such data and apply the relevant transcription rules.

Special characters – in most cases (we have mentioned the hyphen as an exception) – have to be transcribed. The transcription rules are not unified across the world so it’s best to follow the spelling from the MRZ. There will be no ß there – instead you will most likely find ‘SS’ instead.

One such case concerns unusual passport data. We came across a passport where both in the visual part and in the MRZ part, there were two ‘versions’ of the name, like ‘George OR Georgie’. It was literally written like that! Of course, the name is not ‘George OR Georgie’, it’s more the case of the ‘allowed’ Latin transcriptions (this was a Greek passport so the original name was in the Greek alphabet). In that specific case, we know that the data sent to the UK contained only one version of the name (and not the full ‘George OR Georgie’), and the GAR submission was accepted.

Unfortunately, no – this is not possible. There is only space for one document per passenger in GAR, regardless of whether you submit manually via sGAR or automatically through a data provider. So if you know that your passenger has two passports, you can either ask them to take both passports with them, or remind them to bring the one they gave you at the time of booking.

The UK Border Force does not allow passengers with ‘full’ passports to enter the country. They consider such passports to be invalid. If you have already submitted your GAR using such a passport, you will have to resubmit, and include a passport that has free space for stamps.

[This response came from one of the webinar attendees so thank you for sharing your experience.]

If you change the time of departure in a way that only ‘delays’ the flight (but is not considered a ‘reschedule’), the new GAR will not be sent – because it’s not required. The UK does not wish to be informed about such small changes. Our system will, therefore, ignore this time change. In such a case, you have the original GAR confirmation email sent by PnrGo (along with the 2-hour warning). There is no new confirmation email because there is no new GAR submission. You just have to delay the flight as advised, but you should not wait for a new confirmation email in such a case. If the ETD change becomes a ‘major’ change, a new GAR submission will be made, and a new confirmation email will be sent by our system.

This is not as straightforward as it seems. There are some exceptions where ID can be used for arrivals to the UK (e.g. people with a settled status). You can find these exceptions listed on the UK’s official website.

However, it is something we can discuss internally with our team when planning the product roadmap.

This depends on how exactly you use PnrGo. Generally speaking, it is possible to change the name directly in our system. You can always log into our system, find the flight, and change the data manually. However, if you are using PnrGo via an FMS, it is not advisable! It’s better to have everything updated in your scheduling software as we are pulling the data from there.

Depending on the integration type, your manual change might:

• partly switch off the data synchronization between the systems (so we will no longer receive any updates regarding this part of the flight)
• be overwritten by your FMS during the next push of data.

When it comes to our integration with FL3XX, the data synchronization takes on average 5 min. Occasionally, if any of the systems is overloaded (be it on our side or on the UK’s side), it may take a bit longer. Still, the whole GAR data transfer – from FL3XX via PnrGo to the UK – should only take a couple of minutes, and you will always receive an email confirmation once your GAR has been submitted successfully. Bear in mind that this only applies to any data that is already ‘due’ for submission. The first GAR push time is always agreed with the PnrGo user during the onboarding. If the data is entered into the system before that, we will wait until the agreed time.

When it comes to our Leon Software integration, the average time of data update at the moment is 5 min. Occasionally, it may also happen that the systems are overloaded (be it on our side or on the UK’s side), and the whole GAR data update will take a bit longer. In general, however, the total time – from the moment you input/update your data in Leon to the moment you receive a confirmation of your new GAR submission – should not exceed 10 min. Bear in mind that this only applies to any data that is already ‘due’ for submission. The first GAR push time is always agreed with the PnrGo user during the onboarding. If the data is entered into the system before that, we will wait until the agreed time.