[splonk]

Airline employees routinely turn people away at the departure airport due to visa/passport paperwork not being in order. Timatic is the usual system that most airlines subscribe to for this kind of thing. Airlines are highly incented to avoid letting a passenger board who won't be admitted, because they're on the hook for returning that passenger. But an airline employee in at the departure airport is never going to be able to be a perfect proxy for an immigration officer in every country they fly to, and immigration officers generally have wide latitude in who they accept/reject. It is extremely possible that all your paperwork is in order but the immigration control officer rejects you for other reasons.

[darkclouds]

So how do they spot the fake passports then?

And is this a legal on the hook for returning passengers that are not allowed in the destination country?

I've got caught in the US when Hurricane Katrina was landing, and whilst we were flown out by our carrier, other carriers in this situation would also honour our ticket and fly us back to the UK.

It seemed like an exodus where all the carriers just got people out of the country as quickly as possible. We were on the last flight out of the airport, but this isnt a legal thing is it?