Originally Posted by
dvpatel
Yup. Incompetence. I get that with COVID, there are fewer employees and it would take longer than the usual 3 - 4 weeks. BUT. Why are the applications taking weeks to show up in the system and then 10 - 12 weeks on top? And if they indeed have low staffing levels, then as soon as you fork over the money, how is the passport getting approved, printed and mailed out in a mere day? Seems like they wait for you to break and pay and then its immediately processed.
The online status updating for what's going on with US passport applications has always been weak in various ways IME. And the cost to do the fixes to make it wholly accurate would possibly come with an increase in passport fees because of it and even slower processing times.