Home Office<\/a> approval to walk from one part of a UK airport to another. Most of those who do are people of colour, including travellers from about 30 African countries.<\/p>\nThe people who must obtain these visas are not going through immigration control, so never cross the UK border. But the Home Office has decided rigorous checks of who they are, the purpose of their journey and their financial situation must be carried out before the permission to step off one plane and on to another is issued.<\/p>\n
In Femi\u2019s case, Andrea had to provide a range of evidence: passport details; an explanation of why Femi was travelling and proof of booked travel tickets; proof of the funds both women had in their bank accounts; and proof that their friendship was genuine.<\/p>\n
Andrea also provided the wedding venue booking contact after Home Office officials said the wedding invitation and RSVP were not proof enough. They asked why Femi\u2019s business and bank account records showed two different addresses \u2013 she had moved house. \u201cThe whole thing is just so insulting,\u201d says Andrea.<\/p>\n
Most international travellers who need Home Office approval to walk from one part of a UK airport to another are people of colour. Photograph: Andrea Izzotti\/Alamy<\/p>\n
She has made four visa applications over a three-month period at a cost of \u00a341.50 each, along with roughly \u00a374 with each application for the booking of a premium biometrics appointment to take Femi\u2019s fingerprints, to try to speed up the process. All four applications have been rejected. Sponsors such as Andrea are stuck in a catch-22 situation \u2013 she had to buy her friend\u2019s flight ticket and hotel room before she could apply for the visa, as proof that the reason for the journey is genuine. She will lose more than \u00a31,500 if the visa is refused.<\/p>\n
Last year (2025) 20,108 of these visas were approved \u2013 81% \u2013 with 4,744 refused.<\/p>\n
A Home Office spokesperson says: \u201cPassenger Transit Visas are a long\u2011standing safeguard to prevent abuse of the visa system, ensuring only genuine transit passengers can travel through the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrea says the four Home Office rejections have been littered with errors. At one point, officials misplaced a decimal point on Femi\u2019s salary, making it \u00a33.8K instead of \u00a338K. \u201cThe Home Office caseworker states in one of the visa application refusals that my friend\u2019s bank statement contains only four credit transactions over 11 months,\u201d says Andrea, \u201cand refuses her on that basis. This statement actually contains 164 inward credit transfers and 553 outward transactions with multiple transactions per day.\u201d The account is in the name of Femi\u2019s hairdressing business and shows payments to staff, suppliers and others, \u201cexactly what you would expect from an active self-employed hair stylist. Not four transactions. Hundreds.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow does a caseworker look at a bank statement with hundreds of transactions and record it as having just four? And more importantly, what accountability exists when they do things like this?\u201d There is no right of appeal on a Direct Airside Transit Visa. The only route is a complaint, which, says Andrea, \u201cin my case was partially upheld and led directly to another decision containing another serious error. The applicant simply has to keep paying, keep reapplying, and hope that eventually a caseworker reads the documents correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Home Office said Femi could fly via Qatar instead of the cheapest and most direct route, via London Heathrow. Photograph: UCG\/Universal Images Group\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In one of the rejections, the Home Office said Femi could fly via Qatar instead of the cheapest and most direct route via London Heathrow. At the time, Qatar was a conflict zone as a result of the war between Iran and Israel and the US. This route would have taken a day and a half, whereas the route through London Heathrow takes less than 24 hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy blood has never boiled more than with the visa rejection saying that my friend should travel through Qatar,\u201d says Andrea. \u201cThat journey \u2013 going from Lagos to Qatar, Qatar to Miami, then Miami to Barbados \u2013 doesn\u2019t have any logic.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the latest rejection on 21 April, officials once again suggest a more circuitous route, this time via Doha, saying the choice of the most direct route through the UK is not \u201creasonable and credible\u201d. The more visa applications the Home Office refuses, the more of a \u201cred flag\u201d you become, says Andrea.<\/p>\n
It is not easy to speak on the phone to a human being at the Home Office and you can end up paying quite a lot trying to do so. Calls are charged at 69p a minute; it\u2019s likely you\u2019ll be on the phone for a long time. \u201cI paid \u00a320,\u201d says Andrea, \u201cbut it was a waste of time. He said there was nothing that he could do and that I should make a complaint.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Home Office\u2019s mission statement is to be \u201ca world-leading immigration service working for a safe and prosperous United Kingdom\u201d. In one rejection letter, Home Office officials say they do not believe Femi and Andrea even know each other. Of the supporting evidence, the official says: \u201cThe documents do not demonstrate if you have ever met or have any form of contact between you and your sponsor and it is not clear why they are supporting your visit. I am therefore not satisfied that you have a genuine professional or personal relationship with your sponsor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrea\u2019s wedding is now just days away. Femi is struggling to understand the situation. \u201cAndrea is a very close friend and not being there will be heartbreaking for both of us. This trip is not just travel for me, it is about being present for someone very important in my life during one of the most meaningful moments she will ever have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrea believes the Home Office is unlikely to change their decision at the eleventh hour. \u201cThe flight I booked for Femi is non-refundable so, altogether, unsuccessfully trying to get my friend to my wedding has led to almost \u00a32,000 down the drain. This is a money-grubbing exercise and the only winner is the Home Office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Names have been changed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Weddings can be complicated to organise, especially when the venue is more than 4,000 miles from home. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-556853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}