Budget carrier Ryanair has reportedly dropped a test in the Afrikaans language which had been aimed at identifying passengers travelling to the UK on fake South African passports.
Michael O’Leary, group chief executive, told the BBC that imposing the test “doesn’t make any sense”.
The BBC said the policy had caused “outrage” in South Africa, where many black people associate Afrikaans with the days of white-minority rule.
“South Africa has 11 official languages and Ryanair never explained why it chose Afrikaans,” said the BBC report.
The quiz asked passengers about South Africa’s international dialling code, its capital city and current president.
Anyone who failed was refused travel and refunded the cost of their ticket.
Ryanair originally defended the test, saying it was fined for every passenger found to have travelled on a fake passport.
The airline told the BBC last week it had to carry out the extra test because of “substantially increased cases of fraudulent South African passports being used to enter the UK”.
South African citizen Dinesh Joseph told the BBC he was “seething” with anger when asked to take the test before flying to the UK from the Canary Islands.