New U.S. travel requirements little known among Japanese: airlines

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11 Comments

saborichan at 08:57 AM JST - 18th December

Sooo.. what? It's a digital immigration card that Japan's greying tourists will not know about and be unprepared for on arrival?

How does answering those questions make you any more likely to be caught as a terrorist? We've all heard it before; real criminals will falsify the info. They're not going to put their hand up and admit to wrongdoing for a generic pre-check .
Stonefish at 10:11 AM JST - 18th December

Hey has Aki Hoshino been informed about this?
terebiko at 03:06 PM JST - 18th December

One of my students asked me about this before our class, and I had no idea about it either.

Does this mean that people are required to purchase a computer with internet access and learn how to use it in order to travel to the US? Sounds pretty goofy to me. They should just require visas....
cleo at 03:28 PM JST - 18th December

To make the system better known and minimize confusion on Jan 12 or after, the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan, whose members include Japan Airlines Corp and All Nippon Airways Co, will distribute leaflets at Narita airport Thursday.

Errrm, why do the Scheduled Airlines of Japan imagine people are going to be hanging around the airport weeks before they're planning to fly?
ironchef at 06:52 PM JST - 18th December

it's ridiculous. damn US govt blowing things out of proportion again.
mrhog123 at 11:35 AM JST - 19th December

I wonder what Japan will do to retailate. These situations are generally qid pro quo.
elbudamexicano at 11:11 PM JST - 19th December

I wonder if US citizens will also have to put up with this mess?
Suzu1 at 08:10 AM JST - 20th December

This is hardly a unique or burdensome program and only applies to those eligible for visa-free travel to the U.S. Australia has already implemented the same procedure. It simply replaces the forms that had to be filled out on the flight before arrival. Once done it is good for two years.
It will help reduce the number of people who are refused entry because they arrived without a required visa.
And don't worry Canadians - you're exempt from having this new program.
kolohe at 08:32 PM JST - 20th December

This issue was known in the travel industry in Japan since June 2008 but no news hit the general news agencies until now.

Travel agencies will charge their customers a fee to have the data input done for them, especially for those with no computer. The Japanese website was created just for this in October.
Pukey2 at 01:02 AM JST - 21st December

I wonder what Japan will do to retailate. These situations are generally qid pro quo.

You mean, what will Japan do to satisfy America?

I wonder why Europeans put up with this and not subject Americans and Japanese to the same inconvenience.
onedragon at 02:36 PM JST - 26th December

Pukey2, Next year Immigration control throughout all of Europe will become more strict than the U.S.