[JVDL]

Last week my wife and I were deeply disappointed and upset by an experience we had when flying with Norwegian from Copenhagen to Dublin.

The booking reference was : 4I9AHC
And the flight no: DY3606 left Copenhagen on 12 March 2012 at 10:20.

My wife and I are South African Passport Holders, living in Copenhagen with a 5 year residence permit.
As South African Citizens we do NOT require a VISA to visit Dublin. We explained this to the check-in desk prior to boarding the plane. After we were seated on the aeroplane, a gentleman working in CPH airport (Novia) very rudely came and confronted us, and telling us that as South African Citizens were are not allowed to visit Ireland without a VISA. When replying that he was incorrect, he became even more rude and said that he had checked with his supervisor and his supervisor advised that South African passport holders did need a VISA to enter Ireland.

This was complete and utter nonsense and totally incorrect, and NOVIA / NORWEGIAN were completely wrong in this respect. Anyone if spending 2 minutes searching on the internet would easily be able to see that South African Passport holders DO NOT need a VISA to visit Dublin. This gentleman from the airline embarrassed us on the aeroplane and the way he behaved was totally, totally unacceptable. Its incomprehensible and unacceptable that Norwegian Airlines can let your customers be treated in this fashion.

Upon showing this rude gentleman our Danish residence permits, he agreed to let us go to Dublin!
The residence permits are/were of course not required to be shown upon entry into Dublin, and NOVIA had completely misunderstood the rules, or simply were too arrogant to check.
The end result was that we proceeded to Dublin, despite the NOVIA agent allowing us to proceed based on the residence permits (again .. the totally wrong reason - and fortunate that we had our permits with us)

It is very easy to find the regulations on the internet clearly stating that South African Citizens do not require a VISA.

I write this letter, eager to receive your response and apology for being treated this way, embarrassed and harassed, all as a result of employee incompetence.