Originally Posted by
wb1969
Upon presenting ourselves at the check in desk of a certain Irish airline I was advised that I couldn’t fly as even though my passport had more than 6 months left on it, the 10 year anniversary of its the issue date is in 2 weeks time. The law apparently states that a 10 year passport is only valid for 10 years from its issue, NOT the expiry date.
Needless to say there were some very emotional scenes as my young boys couldn’t understand why their Dad couldn’t travel with them. Not to mention an absolutely distraught father who had to watch his family disappear through security without him.
So, if you renew your passport before it has expired and the unused credit from the previous one is added on to the new one, take note that the extension beyond 10 years is superfluous. It cannot be used if your travel date is within 6 months of the 10 year anniversary.
Meantime, and a lot poorer for having to fork out for an emergency passport so I can join them next week, plus the cost of new flights during half term week, I’m sitting here licking my wounds.
Don’t let the same thing happen to you.
Assuming your destination was an EU country (apart from Ireland), your were, unfortunately, correctly denied boarding. It's not strictly the case that you cannot travel to the EU if your passport is more than 9.5 years old, but depending on the duration of trip, you have risk from that point. The actual EU law for non-member states, as the UK now is (for this purpose Schengen states are all treated as member states), is that your passport must be valid for at least 3 months after your intended departure from the EU, and be no more than 10 years old at the end of that 3 month period. Since UK passport holders can stay up to 90 days in the EU (most states) without a visa, you potentially need a passport no older than 9.5 years. However, if you were planning, say, a 1 month trip, you should be allowed to travel with a passport that would be 9 years and 8 months old when you enter the EU. Obviously that wasn't the case for you, it must have been quite distressing.
Originally Posted by
Geordie405
This has been an issue for some time and is well documented. Even the UK Government website mentions it:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/passport...avel-to-europe - "
If you renewed your current passport before the previous one expired, extra months may have been added to its expiry date. Any extra months on your passport over 10 years may not count towards the minimum period needed."
If I recall correctly I think the practice of extending passports beyond the 10 year limit has now stopped. My most recent passport was issued in January 2018 and expires in October 2028 so I got 10 years 10 months when I renewed. It should be fine for travelling back to the UK but not for heading anywhere else!
Unfortunately, until very recently the UK government was misinforming the public on its website by stating that the 6 month rule was a rigid thing, and several airlines followed this, resulting in incorrectly denying boarding to numerous people (would have been a lot more if not for the pandemic). I'm not aware of any cases involving BA, but several with Jet2. easyJet and Tui, all of whom are now facing legal claims and they will have to pay up. IIRC, the UK stopped adding extra months beyond 10 years on passport renewals sometime in Sep/Oct 2018.
Originally Posted by
Gastrocnemius
I fail to follow your Knight's Move* thinking that relates this to Brexit...
*look it up
Without getting political, it absolutely relates to Brexit. When the UK became a non-member state, it lost the exemption it had as a member state to the EU rules around passport validity and age of passport. UK citizens are now subject to the same requirements as citizens of any other non-member state.