Flight diversion + visa issues

What happens if a flight gets diverted to an airport where I don't have rights to enter the country?

You will spend a long time waiting. Most of the time you will be either in an air-side lounge or on the plane itself. 'MeNoTalk's answer is great but I wanted to add some additional outcomes which I have seen happen.

In some of the EU countries, including Switzerland, you can be 'herded en-mass' on to a tour bus and given a drive around the city with a multilingual speaker. Invariably this will end with someone boarding the bus with a trolley full of of profoundly overpriced souvenirs. I have seen this happen with both Aeroflot and Rossiya airlines.

Other times a tour agent will board and give a slide show about the city. Same airlines, same motivation.

And other times the airline will have a new feature film they can show you.

Only in the rarest of cases will you be issued a temporary admission and permitted to leave the airport unescorted.

There are no known cases where a flight was diverted or landed and a passenger was challenged for not having a visa, diversions are part of everyday life. 'MeNoTalk' didn't mention what happens if there's an open arrest warrant for you in the country...

Passenger details may be screened in their database for arrest warrants and if something flags up, you will be in trouble. In the US, this will include state level database enquiries like child support.

Finally, an unscheduled landing does not 'count' in your travel history. It only 'counts' if you are admitted. You do not need to declare it on visa applications that ask for your travel history.

The simple answer is that you will be accommodated by one method or another.

Not sure how many countries actually have me-no-talks "emergency visas" for diverted flights, most will simply secure the passengers in a designated area and never officially stamp them into the country. Countries may issue emergency entry permits/visas for medical emergencies, but usually not for short term diversions (but before someone gives me grief, yes there are exceptions)

If the delay is one that maybe remedied within a reasonable amount of time (weather diversion or maintenance issue), then passengers will often be held in an airport lounge or waiting area until the issue is resolved or the weather passes.

If the delay is one that will be many hours over night, then passengers may be taken to a nearby hotel, their passports held until time to return to the airport and prohibited from leaving the hotel.

I have been through both of the above scenarios.

While some countries have the "time killing" tours that Gayot mentioned, I think those countries are in a minority and those options are reserved for regional flights where visas are not a huge issue.

We recently flew on China Southern Airlines from Vietnam to Australia with a short stop over at Guangzhou China. Due to weather we were unable to land at Guangzhou so they diverted us to Haikou China. That was OK for the passengers that had Chinese Visas, but all other 24 international passengers were detained and told we must purchase a Chinese visa which could only be paid by cash in RMB (Chinese money) which none of us had, they wouldn't accept credit cards or any other currency. We weren't allowed in or out of the airport without a Visa to obtain RMB and they couldn't exchange money where we were being held, for hours they kept saying you must pay for Visa with Chinese money. So it was a catch 22. The immigration people hardly spoke a word of English, they took our passports off us & we were there for about 6 hours while they tried to figure out what to do with us. Finally they found someone that spoke a little English and our airline organised and paid for a temporary Visa for us, at 3.30am they popped us in a bus and put us up in a hotel for 2 hours. Collected us at 5.30 am and took us back to the airport flew us back to Guangzhou and from there back to Australia (or to what ever country we were going to) all courtesy of the Airline, however the language barrier was quite an ordeal and it took many hours each step of the way to organise it all.