After more than a week of strong criticism, during which it defended its position, Ryanair has done an about-face and said it would drop a controversial test in Afrikaans, designed to determine if South African passport-holders were indeed South African.
The airline said earlier this month that the purpose of the test was to identify passengers travelling on fake South African passports – Ryanair said the prevalence of this was high, and said it was fined for every traveller allowed on board who was found to have a false passport.
Several South Africans over the past few weeks have said they were refused boarding and offered a refund because they couldn’t complete the test.
Now, after almost two weeks of outrage voiced in the UK and South African press – during which it was pointed out to Ryanair that the Afrikaans test made no sense, neither politically (as Afrikaans is seen as the language of apartheid) nor sociologically (because only 12% of South Africans know Afrikaans) – Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary has now told the BBC that the Afrikaans test "doesn't make any sense" and would no longer be used.
