While the DHA has dismissed the notion of paying extra in exchange for faster services, Discovery Bank currently allows select customers to join a Fast Track lane when passing through Immigration at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Gauteng.
This is despite the fact that Discovery Bank has no agreement with the Border Management Agency (BMA) within Home Affairs.
Fast-track security clearance is nothing new for airports, as terminals around the world offer programmes that allow people with products or services to quickly pass through security for an extra fee, provided they are affiliated with a company that has an agreement with the airport.
Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), which manages the vast majority of the nation’s landing strips, has been offering Fast Track security clearance for years.
It was initially only available to first and business class customers, as well as those travellers who were part of select loyalty programmes, according to MyBroadband.
In 2020, ACSA entered a commercial marketing deal with Discovery Bank, which included a benefit for the bank’s clientele that would allow them to use “Priority Fast Track” lanes.
This benefit is currently available to Discovery Bank Black and Purple account holders passing through the domestic terminals of O.R. Tambo and Cape Town International Airport.
This service is nothing out of the ordinary compared to similar benefit programmes overseas.
However, questions have been raised over the Discovery Bank Fast Track lane found at Arrivals in the international terminal at O.R. Tambo.
Passport control is handled by the Border Management Authority (BMA), and there are currently no other border control points in South Africa where travellers can get preferential queuing based on a product or service they use, or paying an additional fee.
Setting a bad example
Journalist Andrew Thompson recently spoke in an interview with Cape Talk where he questioned whether it was fair that a company could offer such preferential access to a national asset.
He argued that it would be like visiting a Home Affairs or South African Revenue Services branch and skipping to the front of the queue because the individual is a member of a particular bank.
He also expressed a general concern about how many airports allow persons to pay for faster security clearance.
Thompson’s reasoning is that these services only exist because of the long queues in regular security lanes.
This incentivizes poor service delivery, as individuals feel more pressured to fork out for “special treatment” the worse the queues get.
The DHA previously stated that it was developing its own “premium service” but that this would only be for home deliveries of documents and would not allow users to fast track their applications.
This was in response to backlash the department received from the public when it announced it would offer a premium service, as citizens complained that charging for preferential treatment was unacceptable given the notoriously slow service the DHA is known for.
Discovery told MyBroadband that other parties have access to the Fast Track channel, but acknowledged passport control fell under the BMA and the company had no relationship with the BMA.