What is API?

API (sometimes called APIS) stands for Advanced Passenger Information and is a security measure that requires airlines to submit passenger data to the destination country before the passenger’s arrival. Typical API requirements are: full name; DOB; sex; and passport number, expiration date and country of issue.

Now, API in itself isn’t particularly annoying, but what is annoying is that at least one airline is using passenger ignorance of API as an excuse to levy an additional charge at the check-in desk.

To capture the API, airlines usually email passengers with a link to where you can add the extra data, plus a warning that you may have problems travelling if you turn up at check-in without first submitting the info.

However, having just checked with easyJet, Ryanair, BA, Thomson and bmibaby, all allow you to hand over your API at check-in – so the emails may have more to do with speeding up check-in queues – which is no bad thing. But what is a bad thing is that only one of the above airlines charges you for entering your API at check-in – bmibaby.

Not only does bmibaby charge £5 each time you check-in without previously submitting your API (payable there and back), you must supply the information online – a measure which I think discriminates against people who neither own nor use a computer.

For example, here’s what I saw when flying to Malaga with bmibaby last September.

I was at the back of a big check-in queue at Cardiff airport, behind a coach-load of retirees. Whilst impatiently wondering why the queue was moving at a snail’s pace, I noticed that a lot of travellers were slowing things up by having to produce their purses/wallets halfway through the check-in procedure.

When this happened with the couple in front of me, I overheard that the problem was because they had failed to enter their API. The couple then protested ignorance, before coughing up £5 each (and quite possibly another £5 each if they failed to submit API for the return leg). I, on the other hand, had read the email, navigated the bmibaby site, and entered my details.

Now I know silver surfers are on the rise, but retired people are still less likely to be computer savvy than people my age (22 next birthday… it’s a bad photo), which is why I reckon so many were having to put their hands in their pockets.

This is not ageism, but merely a recount of what I witnessed – and I’m sure people of all ages have been stung by this charge. But the point I’m really trying to make is: surely nobody needs to be stung at all?

Despite bmibaby’s website claim that the £5 is an administration charge, those other airlines I mentioned don’t charge at all. And if Ryanair doesn’t charge – the company that proposed the airplane pay toilet, the company often perceived as charging for whatever it can get away with – if even they don’t charge, perhaps bmibaby should rethink their API penalty.

Anyway, rant over, except to say that if you’re due to travel with bmibaby, save yourself £10 by going online to complete the API before you fly. That’s all, and please feel free to respond with any of your own API experiences via the comment button below.

Note: Brits bound for the United States may have to supply additional API to that mentioned above, and must also go online to fill in the ESTA form before travelling.