Airlines take barred fliers as Trump travel ban ‘grounded’

AP, REUTERS
Behnam Partopour, a Worcester Polytechnic Institute student from Iran, is greeted by his sister Bahar at Logan Airport after he cleared US customs and immigration on an F1 student visa in Boston, Massachusetts. (Reuters)

DUBAI: Citizens of seven mainly Muslim countries banned from the US by President Donald Trump can resume boarding US-bound flights, several major airlines said on Saturday, after a Seattle judge blocked the executive order.
Qatar Airways was the first to say it would allow passengers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to fly to US cities if they had valid documents.
Air France, Spain’s Iberia and Germany’s Lufthansa all followed suit after the federal judge’s ruling, which the White House said it planned to appeal as soon as possible.
Emirates and Etihad Airways said they will allow barred passengers to board US-bound flights.
US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) has advised them they can board travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all refugees who had been banned under the order, the airlines said.
“Acceptance will naturally be subject to checks completed by U.S. authorities as existed prior to the issuance of the Executive Order on Jan. 27,” an Etihad spokesman told Reuters in e-mailed comments.
Emirates and Qatar Airways spokeswomen confirmed the airlines were again accepting all passengers with valid travel documents.
Trump's suspension on the entry of nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and all refugees caught airlines off guard, with some carriers forced to re-roster flight crew in order to abide by the order.
Budget airline Norwegian, which operates transatlantic flights including from London and Oslo, said many uncertainties remained about the legal position. “It’s still very unclear,” spokeswoman Charlotte Holmbergh Jacobsson said. “We advise passengers to contact the US Embassy ... We have to follow the US rules.”
In Cairo, aviation sources said Egypt Air and other airlines had told their sales offices of Friday’s ruling and would allow people previously affected by the ban to book flights.
But for some who had changed their travel plans following the ban, the order was not enough reassurance.
In Dubai, Tariq Laham, 32, and his Polish fiancee Natalia had scrapped plans to travel to the US after they get married in July in Poland. Laham said the couple would not reverse their decision.
“It is just too risky,” said Laham, a Syrian who works as a director of commercial operations at a multinational technology company. “Every day you wake up and there is a new decision.”
A Reuters poll earlier this week indicated that the immigration ban has popular support, with 49 percent of Americans agreeing with the order and 41 percent disagreeing. Some 53 percent of Democrats said they “strongly disagree” with Trump’s action while 51 percent of Republicans said they “strongly agree.”
At least one company, the ride-hailing giant Uber, was moving quickly Friday night to take advantage of the ruling.
CEO Travis Kalanick, who quit Trump’s business advisory council this week in the face of a fierce backlash from Uber customers and the company’s many immigrant drivers, said on Twitter:
Meanwhile, 72 Iranian professors in Sharif University of Technology, one of the most reliable universities in Iran, have requested in a letter to the Iranian government to react in a different way to Trump’s “improper action” on the visa ban.
They proposed to President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to allow US citizens come to Iran without obtaining a tourist visa and related formalities in the country and to issue visas for them at the Iran’s airport with two-weeks validity during the next 90 days.
They said that Americans can see the hospitality and goodwill of Iranians for themselves.