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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

A lot of companies seem to have "policies" that are grounded in nothing. Airlines are especially bad about this, thinking they know better than you whether you'll be able to get through immigration at the destination. For whatever reason, airline policies about whether you can get on the plane are completely unrelated to the destination countries' policies about whether you can be allowed in.

The most egregious such policy that comes to mind was when Philippine Airlines refused to give me a boarding pass for a flight to China unless I filled out a health declaration form that was guaranteed to expire before my flight arrived.

There was of course no obstacle to me filling out (a new copy of) the form on arrival in China. As was necessarily the case, given that the pre-flight declaration expired during the flight.

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I think the rationale behind this is that many countries will fine the airline around $10,000 for each passenger that doesn't have the right immigration documentation and has to be deported. So there is a reason they err on the side of caution for them at the expense of making your life harder

It’s not the denied entry pipeline that a lot of countries worry about. Those have always been the airline’s problem.

It’s the lawful refugee claims they might be forced to consider/accept if a claimant can make landfall.

And their dislike of citizens using minimal ID to lawfully gain entry home.

So they extort the airlines to fulfill their wishes on foreign soil.

"It’s not the denied entry pipeline that a lot of countries worry about." - do you have any evidence for that claim?

> A lot of companies seem to have "policies" that are grounded in nothing.

A lot of this comes down to people not wanting to stick their head out to change process and groupthink.

I witnessed an individual in a “worker bee” capacity trying to suggest a small-but-significant change on a client-facing first-contact form. They went through their CoC to get the message out, but got the “that’s nice, dear” treatment.

Said “worker bee” moved into a different department some time later, and all of a sudden, it was such a great idea that no one had thought about.

These kind of policies are usually grounded by the one dickhead who tried to do something completely stupid that they never anticipated, now they have to have a policy for it.

Every dumb rule and warning label has a story attached.

> These kind of policies are usually grounded by the one dickhead who tried to do something completely stupid that they never anticipated, now they have to have a policy for it.

How do you think that could create a policy of "before boarding the plane, you must fill out some invalid paperwork which will be available, and valid, after you disembark"? There is literally zero consequence for not doing it, and also literally zero benefit for doing it.

Why enforce something that’s bound to become irrelevant by the time it’s needed?

To avert liability, usually.

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