NEWSFLASH - General IATA Advisories & Specific Regional Advisories: Africa

IN the run-up to next month's World Cup activities, the South African government intends to implement changes to its Immigration regulations relating to transit visa requirements for certain persons who will transit through South Africa en-route to certain other African states. The text that follows has been prepared by the TIMATIC Editing Team in co-operation with South African Airlines, and will be uploaded to the TIMATIC database upon receipt of final approval from South Africa's Immigration Service.

Effective June 1st, 2010 those passengers who require a visa to enter South Africa, will also be required to hold a transit visa when transiting South Africa en-route to any of the following countries:
Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland or Zimbabwe
TWOV facility will still be available if transiting to a country other than those listed above.

While the TIMATIC on-line database has not yet been updated to reflect the language above, we are disseminating this information to all interested carriers as an advance advisory of what we believe will be the final and approved language relating to this issue. In the event of any specific changes being requested by the ZA authorities, we will certainly issue an update to this initial advisory, and that final approved text made available to all carriers, and travel agencies next week via TIMATIC on-line services.

Reported by IATA's Security and Facilitation Team