Question for long haul drivers

[Strega]

I have a question for long haul drivers, that frequently stay overnight in Europe/Asia.

What do you do with your passports?
Do they fill up very quickly with stamps/visas? of is there some other method ?


Thanks

[flaps78]

For Corporate / charter operator's we generally enter and exit the country on a crew General Declaration ( GD) and don't require a stamp in our passport. There are a lot of exceptions to this (China,Azerbaijan, Russia,India,Iran,to name a few) in which case you have to get a visa.The validity of a visa varies from 24 hours to one year depending on the country, your requirements and how many times you have had a visa from that country. Many of these visa's will take a full page in your passport.

In some countries (ie Saudi) Immigration will keep your passport and give you a stamped piece of paper valid for 72 hours that you must carry with you and entitles you to travel in that city only. When you depart you return the paper to Immigration and they return your passport.

The passport that you carry may affect entry requirements, visa's etc.

I suggest that you check your Jepps under entry requirement and employ a good handler.

Fly safe.

[pushyboss]

NEVER give up your passport! I have flown in and out of most countries on the planet , including numerous trips into Saudi Arabia, and if asked nicely (see money exchanging hands) you can keep your passport.

Yes many countries visa's will take up a full page on your passport and if you are regularly re-entering certain countries such as Egypt you will get a stamp every time.

I recommend if you are ging to doing lot's of international trips get yourself the big passport with double the pages.

[Snowgoose]

I carry photocopies of my passport to pass out if John Q Customs agent wants mine. In Europe most times there is a crew line and you normally don't have to even show your passport.

[Panama Jack]

I'm not exactly a long-haul driver (well, not for a few more weeks anyhow), but I do work for a major scheduled airline in a small country where, from here, every flight is an international flight.

For every place we go, we enter on General Declarations only. We do not fly to the United States or the People's Republic of China (yet), but for these two countries crew visas are required. All other destinations we can go through on Gen Dec's, even for those where you would normally require a visa as a traveller. This is changing slightly for one European country, where they have started stamping passports for some of our crew, however, with the IATA CMC card to be introduced at our airline shortly, this practice should cease.

However, a 48-page visa is a good idea, and only costs a few dollars more than the 24-page one.

[Johnny767]

There are a number of Countries that we do not actually go through Customs. As odd as that seems.

The places we do, they do not (..or rarely) stamp the passport.

It is not an issue, using up the pages, in our 5 (most places are 10) year passport.

[RB-211]

I am sure Tony 'The Expert' Soprano has the answer.

Tone?

[tonysoprano]

RB. You're embarassing.
I keep my passport in my flt bag. Generally safe, at least in Europe. The pages fill up but then they seem to just stamp on top of egsisting stamps. Whatever the reason they seem to just stamp away.