0

Normally, when flying on a return ticket, I would present the airline with the passport that lets me into the destination country during check-in. This will sometimes result in showing two different passports (depending on whetever I am returning) with the same return ticket. However, quite obviously, this theoretically allows the airline to deduce that I am a multinational, and which two countries exactly am I citizen of.

Let's assume I didn't want the airline to know. What would be my course of action? Should I just avoid booking return tickets? Do you know any other tricks?

Edit: for the purposes of this question, let's assume I don't care if governments know or find out that I am a multinational. Just the airline.

Improve this question
4
  • 1
    The airline probably doesn't care what you are as long as you have the proper paperwork though I suppose an airline could be a data collection point for government agencies. Not sure that it is a good idea to break the law by holding multi-national citizenship with countries that don't allow that. It would seem that sort of thing could get you on the wrong list of travelers, the list where you end up in jail. Or worse.
    – Richard Chambers
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 15:38
  • 1
    @RichardChambers Some airlines have recently started to use "big data", to "provide better service quality". That of course means that they'll collect everything they can, which can get creepy. Or that data might just get stolen if the airline gets hacked. Or it might get sold. This is the kind of thing people might want to avoid for airlines they don't trust.
    – user4551
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 15:44
  • @RichardChambers I've edited the question to eliminate the "government" factor.
    – user4551
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 16:44
  • @user4551 Well, the thing is, you should be more concerned about the Governments finding out than the airlines. In practice, the airlines really don't care what Passport you use or what citizenship you have, they are businesses and your money is more important than politics. Similarly, they don't care what the immigration rules are, they just don't want to get fined. Again, it's about the money.
    – DTRT
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 18:29

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

In general you can't. The airlines are responsible to check that you have proper entry documentation for your destination and will often be heavily fined if they screw up. Hence they do keep records so they can show What they did in case a dispute arises. These records are associated with the ticket number and quite often with you as a person.

Whether they every look at these records, compare docs, or care at all, is a different question, but you can't be sure.

To really achieve your goal, you would have to buy one way tickets with different airlines and use these airlines consistently for each direction.

Improve this answer
2
  • Sorry, I have to downvote because this answer is not substantially different them mine and I got the wrong Downvotes. :(
    – DTRT
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 18:09
  • We are both 100% correct though. :) Note, I decided to delete my Answer because I don't want anyone to be mislead by the Downvotes.
    – DTRT
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 18:14
1

What would be my course of action?

There's a few options:

  • Book the return flight with a different company
  • In case one of your passports allows for visa-free entry to the other, show that passport at all times. If not, apply for a visa to the other country through the second country (but don't use it at immigration).
  • Fly to an airport in a neighboring country that is visa-free to both passports and then get a separate return ticket to that airport.
Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .