Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers, which does not
operate flights to and from South Africa, said it required any
UK-bound passengers from the country to fill in the "simple
questionnaire" due to what it described as a high prevalence of
fraudulent South African passports.
"If they are unable to complete this questionnaire, they will be
refused travel and issued with a full refund," a spokesman for
the Irish airline said.
The UK High Commission in South Africa said on Twitter that the
test was not a British government requirement to enter the
United Kingdom.
Ryanair said it would apply to any South African passport holder
flying to Britain from another part of Europe on the carrier.
The airline did not immediately respond to a query about why it
would apply to those routes, given Britain says it is not a
requirement.
Afrikaans is the third most spoken of 11 official languages in
South Africa, used by 12% of the 58 million people in the
country. It was considered the official language until the end
of apartheid in 1994.
The language was born of Dutch settlement in South Africa in the
17th century, and has long been identified with racial
classification and associated with the ideology of apartheid
which was primarily enforced and propagated by the white
minority National Party from 1948.
Its dominance under apartheid was seen as a symbol of inequality
imposed on previous generations by restrictions on where people
could live, work, go to school and own land.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin and Promit Mukherjee in
Johannesburg; Editing by Alison Williams)
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