janis' scenario makes sense - it is the duty of your airline to make sure you have proper paperwork to be allowed into your destination airport/country or it is the airline's responsbility to fly you back free.

<<And I would think it's in any decent guidebook - but obviously have ot read them all.>> The onus is always on the traveller to make sure they have all their documentation in order and not to look or rely on info in guidebooks which will be out of date as soon as published. These types of rules change. There are many rules about passports, not just validity of 6 months, for instance, to travel to South Africa, you need two clear consecutive pages in your passport for immigration to stamp. The fact that immigration always stamp my passport on pages with stamps already is neither here nor there, I could be refused boarding if I didn't have the requirement of the 2 clear pages.

On reason that airlines are so careful about following the passport validity and visa rules -- even though probably a lot of 'invalid' people could slip though since the controls are not always thorough -- is because they are fined 20,000€ for each 'inadmissible passenger' that they transported. And of course they have to fly the person back on the next plane.

The requirement of two blank facing pages is true for a number of Asian countries. The country's visa takes one full page and the facing page needs to be blank for entry and exit stamps.