BBC News 6 June 2022
One of Europe's biggest short-haul airlines is imposing new rules on South African nationals that have drawn condemnation.
Dublin-based carrier - RyanAir - says South African customers will have to take an Afrikaans test to prove their nationality before boarding flights The airline flies in Europe and North Africa.
The test includes questions about who is the president, what is the capital city and which side of the road do motorists drive on.
The airline said those passengers unable to complete it would be refused travel and issued with a refund.
The carrier said the rules were meant to deal with “high prevalence of fraudulent South African passports”, according to a company spokesperson quoted by British media.
South Africa has 11 official languages - Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Sepedi, Setswana, English, Sesotho, Xitsonga, Siswati, Tshivenda and Ndebele.
The chief executive officer of the Afrikaans Language Board, Conrad Steenkamp, has described the move as “absurd”, and that he doesn't understand why RyanAir singled out Afrikaans, as the country has 11 official languages.
Jared Ruttenberg, a journalist in South Africa, says the test “will be a deeply triggering thing for many South Africans to be told that they need to complete this in a language that they cannot do”.
"The British High Commissioner and even the Irish government have responded and said this is not a requirement on their behalf," he said.
"There's been disbelief and anger... in South Africa we have a very difficult past when it comes to languages and for many people would associate Afrikaans with the previous government [apartheid] regime."
