squawk

Edit 2023-12-06: remove urgency in case anyone sees the title and offers live assistance! See this post #1 and post #6 for context; post #15 for the outcome, and post #40 for further responses to specific questions and comments.

Hello everyone,
Somewhere between using my passport as ID on this morning’s BA1389 MAN-LHR, and attempting to board BA754 LHR-BSL, I appear to have lost my passport.

I checked where I sat in the South Club lounge, as well as with the customer service desk there. I went more or less directly there from domestic arrivals, aside from a very brief wander through the Whisky store (but I didn’t buy anything). Given I’m fairly obsessive about keeping my passport in my jeans pocket with my wallet, and it doesn’t seem to be on my person or in the lounge, I suspect that the mostly likely situation is that I failed to put it back in my pocket properly at MAN and it fell on the air bridge.

Obviously I’ve been offloaded, and I’m currently at CS in T5 airside. The chap seems nice but a little bit clueless about what to do - the MAN-LHR aircraft is already elsewhere. He’s said he’ll try to get me back to Manchester on a flight shortly…

I’ll obviously need a new passport if it is not rapidly found, but:

1. is there a defined procedure of “what to do” from BA’s perspective here? If at all possible I’d like to keep my return flight on this booking, in a few weeks (BSL-LHR).

2. Does anyone have a direct number for whoever at MAN would be likely to be able to help find this? Or indeed at LHR to try to track it down?

3. any other suggestions very much appreciated!

cauchy

Sorry to hear this has happened!

1. I’ve heard lost passports are handed to Border Force, who tend to cancel them very quickly (if UK one, they have no authority to cancel other passports).

2. My advice would be to go back to MAN, plead your case in person with the handlers there.

3. Liverpool passport office has in person appointments available today (but you wont get there in time) and tomorrow. Get to a post office to get the forms, take the photos, and get your counter signatory lined up. Officially it’ll be a week before your new passport arrives, but you can plead your case and see what they can do.

On 3. Once you’ve applied for the new passport your old one is useless, even if it turns up. Trying to use it will end very badly.

jamestg

It will be a hopeless battle to get your old one back.

Cancel passport, order new one, get fast track appt ASAP and say what’s happened. They have special considerations and you can often get your passport in 90mins after the appointment.

You can’t use the online premium service as that requires your old passport.

sammyg901

It's been a number of years now but when I washed mine they were very adamant that I wasn't getting a same day replacement even though I had a flight departing the next day unless I was travelling due to a bereavement or similar. But it'd be worth asking at the office if you went for a 1 week appointment to see what they can do

The very helpful lady there when I went breezily suggested that if I needed a second passport due to potential upcoming work travels needing visas and my employer would write a letter to that effect and I went out to get new photos and happened to come back to her with said letter she'd do me a same day passport. As it happened we had a potential project in India so my employer was happy to write it and I happily made my (non refundable non changable I class to NYC!) flight the next day.

sammyg901

Going back to Manchester may use the last segment of your ticket and then the rest will not be unusable, so be careful how that is arranged. If you do get to Manchester I'd try asking someone around the jet bridge area or even ask the crew if they can ask the cockpit to ask etc. Can't be many found passports in a day! Though I'd be surprised if it were found that someone hadn't looked into your booking and added a note or similar.

squawk

Thanks cauchy and jamestg for the advice. The agent at CS South rebooked me onto BA1372 back to MAN, albeit currently without a dedicated seat (boarding pass just says GATE - not sure if this means I'm actually on standby, or if I will just be given whatever is available but will definitely be on the flight).

I'm slight peeved as he didn't tell me before doing this that this was "using up" my return flight to the UK (i.e. that my flight BSL-LHR in 2 weeks has effectively been cancelled). I wouldn't have minded if he'd informed me before doing so... as I said, he seemed at a bit of a loss of what to do.

Tried ringing the lost property number for MAN but via the tedious phone system it informs you that if something has been handed in less than 24 hours earlier, you should fill in the online form and wait to be contacted.

One of the other colleagues of the gentleman at South CS was rather more helpful and said the following (posted in case it can be of any help to anyone else):

Anything official travel documents handed in on the Heathrow estate are passed to Border Force and then on to the Home Office who will cancel them (if they're UK documents). Another helpful chap at the entrance to North Club lounge a few minutes ago said that there was a ~ 4 hour window between things being handed in to BA, e.g. in a lounge, and them being passed to Border Force. That might offer someone a window of opportunity if you're sure where you lost it and returned there immediately. Unfortunately as my docs might not even be in LHR this hasn't worked for me.

It looks like a Fast Track appointment, and new flights, is the only way to go for me at present. Rather annoyed as I had a few years left on my old red passport, which also had a couple of interesting visas - and as a German resident, I can foresee having a mountain of bureaucracy to get my residency reissued with a new passport number (if anyone has any tips on this, please do let me know)...

squawk

That's good to know - thanks for the suggestion. I suspect my (non-UK) employer probably wouldn't do this, I doubt they'd even know what I'd be asking for, but I will bear it in mind.

Crossed post - this is exactly what has happened, it seems. I might have to put in a complaint about this, because I did specifically ask him beforehand to ensure the flight back from BSL-LHR was kept active at the beginning of our interaction (he spent a long time on hold to Immigration/BF, and then bits of BA, before then offering me to return to MAN if I had another photo ID). Once he did it, I said "so the BSL-LHR flight is still OK then?" and then he said no - I said I wasn't happy, but the return flight to MAN was scheduled to leave only a short time afterwards so did not have time to hang around and debate it.

No notes were attached to the booking so far, so unless it's changed in the last 45 mins or so...

corporate-wage-slave

Bad situation, but I can't see anything you have done wrong here. It is the case that the Border Force will cancel the passport after a fairly brief period out of your hands, 4 hours sounds plausible, and that would apply for passports that fall out of the trays in security. There the passport would be in secure hands all the way, but still after a few hours the passport would be cancelled. I would try and see Border Force in LHR and MAN if you can, just on the off chance, ditto MAN lost property, passports are always going to be a special case in terms of trying to get them back to the owner.

One place were passports are often found is the WC, I think that after security scan points and airbridges, the WC is the third most common location.

Another reason for relying on other ID for domestic services, though on through tickets outside the CTA then Menzies at MAN would almost certainly need a passport.

Postal applications for lost passports are taking about a week at the moment.

Strawb

How sure are you that you dropped your passport on the airbridge whilst boarding the flight in MAN? Were you last to board? If not I would assume your passport might have been discovered and handed to the cabin crew before doors closed. In any event if anyone else was to follow behind you after you had dropped it then it would be found. Could it be possible that you might have left it onboard and not noticed it?

If you did leave your passport on the plane and not noticed then there is a possibility that it might have been found and handed in on the turnaround. The aircraft you were on (G‐EUUM) departed from gate A5 a few hours ago as BA308. I would go and check with the gate agents there right now if I were you.

Krisz

Technically your ticket would have been cancelled anyway as you failed to board the LHR-BSL leg. Now BA could or would have protected other segments in your ticket it is entirely speculative. It is not BA fault but your own issue and this is where travel insurance came to the picture. So I would check if you have one and follow that process. If you have a good travel insurance for this trip then that could pay for your replacement passport (up to a certain amount) plus the replacement flight, etc.

DernierVirage

I had two UK passports for many years and got the appropriate letters from French, German and Swiss employers with no problem...so you should be OK.

ManInExitRow

The loss of a passport is at best a huge inconvenience and possibly a lot worse. A second passport in this situation can rescue matters.
They are (rightly) not handed out lightly. But invaluable if you’ve handed yours in for a visa somewhere and you have urgent five day business in (er) SOF.
As relying on MAN for doing anything right : 😬

suley

Welcome to the club, I lost my passport earlier in the year but I was abroad, so more fun trying to get back home.

I would say, probability is its eitther on the plane or at Manchester on the boading gate. When you land in Manchester you really need to ask them to speak to someone and don't go landside straight away. If it's not there, just book an urgent replacement and move on, you will laugth over it in a few days times. I know my colleagues at work still find it funny I got stranded abroad

Jeff767

I have dealt with several lost passport issues from passengers over the years. 99% of the time it is in the persons baggage somewhere. Go through every pocket possible in every bag you had with you the last time you saw it.

squawk

Hello everyone,

A brief update before I collapse into bed - it has been a rather long and tiring day.

Good news: I was reunited with my passport at UK Border at LHR late this afternoon. All that is dented, other than my pride, is my wallet as I will need to rebook my originally intended route at short notice for later this week.

Bad news, I’m back in Manchester so will need to run the gauntlet of M56/M60 and T3 security unpredictability again.

I will give a fuller update tomorrow, as some of my experiences may be useful to others, but suffice to say: the “original” return flight to Manchester I mentioned in my earlier post did not happen - I got to the gate, was scanned in, and failed biometrics. Apparently there wasn’t a photo of me… by which point it was too late to do anything about it, and I was denied boarding.*

In order to rectify this I had to be escorted out from airside - this is meant to be hourly on the hour but timekeeping was rather malleable. So if you are able to be rebooked in a situation like this to (another) later flight, ensure it isn’t too soon! In my case I’d spent the intervening time while waiting for an escort out getting myself rebooked onto a later MAN flight - which was a real hassle because for some reason I was still showing on FLY as boarded on the flight I’d been denied boarding too. The excellent CS rep spent at least 30 mins, and had to ring a lot of her colleagues, including at the gate, to somehow get me offloaded so that she could get me onto another flight.

* I am curious about this, as I (perhaps wrongly) thought that everyone entering airside at T5 would have had to have the biometric photo - and I assumed this was part of the “scan boarding card” flight connections thing between the domestic gates and departures.

A big thank you to everyone who contributed, and I’ll take the time to reply properly when my brain re-engages after some sleep.