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There is already a great answer about travelling with two passports. What happens if the spelling in the passports is slightly different (due to alphabet transliteration into English?)

Let say a person has citizenship from countries A and B. That person buys round trip ticket from A to B and back to A.

In theory that person should show the B passport when flying to country B and show the A passport when flying to A. This means the airline ticket spelling will mismatch one of the passports

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  • How different are the spellings?
    – John Zwinck
    Commented Jan 22, 2015 at 1:03
  • first name Vitaliy vs Vitaly
    – Vitalik
    Commented Jan 22, 2015 at 2:02
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    I think most people would be quite capable of believing those names are actually the same. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
    – John Zwinck
    Commented Jan 22, 2015 at 2:15
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    Is the passport photo in each passport "essentially the same?" As in, are you a balding, bearded, white guy in one and full of hair, clean shaven with a visible scar in the second? If both photos are similar and similar to you, and you can show other identification as well (driver's license, etc), explaining that the name was messed up due to Cyrillic letter translation will be understood and ignored.
    – CGCampbell
    Commented Jan 22, 2015 at 18:12
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    @MarkMayo "What happens if the passport doesn't match the ticket, but I also have another passport that does match but doesn't grant the permission to enter the destination country"
    – Vitalik
    Commented Jan 23, 2015 at 14:48

2 Answers 2

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Presented both passports at check-in and was denied boarding because of different spelling in the passport. True story. Had to buy another ticket. After some hassle fixed the spelling issue.

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  • Did either of the passports match the name on the ticket?
    – phoog
    Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 20:13
  • Yes, of course, I was flying from London to Moscow. Ticket was in the name of my US passport, Russian passport which they checked for entry requirements had a different spelling so they denied boarding. The company was BMI airlines, bankrupt now, deservedly so IMHO. I had to buy another ticket and fly with British Airways later that evening.
    – Mike
    Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 20:23
  • And of course I have made the argument above that they can verify BOTH my identity and the fact that I will be let into the destination country. They just didn't care. So basically you're at the mercy of some random airline person. I've later heard that you're ok as long as your name(s) in different passports is within 1-2 characters difference, but I don't know whether that's a policy or just a rule of thumb that airlines can apply or ignore.
    – Mike
    Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 20:28
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The airline needs to check your passport for two purposes:

  1. To positively identify you to ensure that your name matches the booking;
  2. To ensure that you have the proper documentation to enter the destination country.

It sounds like in your case, you may need to show both passports to the airline on checkin. One passport will satisfy the identification requirement; the other will satisfy the arrival requirement.

Today it is not unusual to have more than one passport. The airline should be fine with this.

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