![](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/gp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/217de6a6-d0ef-5eab-a4eb-cf3eeb82802d.jpg\")
However, he said the good times were forgotten even before he left the island when a Ryanair official told him to take his boarding pass to their customer services desk to be stamped.<\/p>\n
Joseph, a leadership and management trainer in the UK, said what happened next left him fuming.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took my passport and my boarding pass and handed me two photocopied pages with questions in Afrikaans that were printed skew. There was no letterhead, no logo or stamp, nothing to prove it was an official document.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was told he didn\u2019t have a choice in the matter because it was a \u201cRyanair rule\u201d that South African travellers had to follow even though he told them he could not speak Afrikaans and would have to Google the answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuckily my primary school memories kicked in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Joseph said he was mad as hell that they treated him as if he was \u201ca monkey\u201d, while his girlfriend, who is from the UK, was left gobsmacked.<\/p>\n
The officials warned him that he would not be able to fly to the UK if he did not complete the form.<\/p>\n
Afterwards a Ryanair employee pulled out a marking sheet to see if he had passed the test and Joseph said he became emotional at the indignity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe form is in Afrikaans, I filled it out in English and she spoke Spanish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Joseph asked yesterday how this process would aid security at airports and \u201cwhy the hell\u201d Ryanair and not a government agency was doing the vetting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems as if it\u2019s happening just indiscriminately against South Africans.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the general theory doing the rounds was that South Africa had a reputation for high levels of fraud and corruption and that people were faking South African passports to enter different countries.<\/p>\n However, he said it was \u201cridiculous on every level\u201d that an airline and not a government was doing a vetting process. In addition, no one could fake biometrics.<\/p>\n Joseph tried to lodge an official complaint with Ryanair after the ordeal but could not reach the airline.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t actually call them. I lodged a complaint on their portal and I haven\u2019t heard from them in two weeks. They are like snakes in the grass, you can\u2019t catch them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Independent on Saturday made several attempts to contact Ryanair by email through their chat bot and via their call centre.<\/p>\n Eventually a call centre agent said they were only carrying out instructions that were listed on the UK government\u2019s website and slammed down the phone.<\/p>\n No such requirement is listed on the website.<\/p>\n Isabel Potgieter, head of communication at the British High Commission in Pretoria, said: \u201cWe are aware of these reports. This is not a UK government requirement however.\u201d<\/p>\n Potgieter said all information related to requirements for South African passport holders to enter the UK was available on their website.<\/p>\n The Embassy of Ireland in Pretoria said it was aware of the reports. \u201cWe are happy to clarify that the Irish immigration authorities do not under any circumstances require or administer such tests to passengers travelling to Ireland,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n The Embassy said holders of valid South African Passports do not need an entry visa to come to Ireland for stays of shorter than 90 days. However, other standard immigration procedures do apply and all travellers (regardless of their country of citizenship) must be able to satisfy the Immigration Officer at the Port of Entry that they have a valid reason for entering Ireland.<\/p>\n The Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco) is also aware of the issue.<\/p>\n Media liaison officer Lunga Ngqengelele said: \u201cHome Affairs are responsible for immigration, however we are also investigating the matter from Dirco\u2019s side.\u201d<\/p>\n After expressing his anger, Joseph saw the funny side of things and said he got the first three questions wrong because he could only list one of South Africa\u2019s capitals: Pretoria.<\/p>\n He said he also listed all the colours of the flag as the answer to what was South Africa\u2019s official colour, but eventually settled on black, which Ryanair accepted as correct and he was then given his documents to board the flight.<\/p>\n Responses ranging from outraged to hilarious could be seen on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit as people commented on the test.<\/p>\n Amanda Muller said it was unbelievable: \u201cYou are NOT serious? Did one of the staff\u2019s kids have a project on SA that needed completing? Totally unfathomable\u2026 what if you don\u2019t understand Afrikaans (like me)?\u201d<\/p>\n A few people said the only response to all the questions was \u201cJou ma se p***!\u201d<\/p>\n A few others vowed never to fly Ryanair again.<\/p>\n In February \u201cThe Times\u201d newspaper in the UK wrote that Ryanair CEO Michael O\u2019Leary had called for Muslim men to be profiled at airports because they were a threat, unlike families with young children who had virtually no chance of being terrorists.<\/p>\n O\u2019Leary was quoted as saying: \u201cWho are the bombers? They are going to be single males travelling on their own. If you are travelling with a family of kids, on you go, the chances you are going to blow them all up is zero.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t say stuff, because it\u2019s racism, but it will generally be males of a Muslim persuasion. Thirty years ago it was the Irish. If that is where the threat is coming from, deal with the threat.\u201d<\/p>\n The Independent on Saturday<\/strong><\/p>\n Source <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Durban \u2013 South Africans have klapped back with a typical \u201cjou ma se p**s\u201d after reports that those wanting to travel to and from the UK were subjected to a general knowledge test in Afrikaans. Low cost airline Ryanair, which claims to be the biggest airline group in Europe, subjected several South Africans to general […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1109836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1109834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-odd-but-true"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/gp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/91d1a073-c69f-5008-a437-f19762943467.jpg\")