UK holidaymakers are being hit with a passport rule that's seeing 200 people a day getting booted from their flights. Brits eager for some European sun are facing the boot at boarding gates due to a strict passport expiry rule. To enter the EU/Schengen Zone, passports must be issued within the last decade and remain valid for three months beyond your planned departure date.
Holders of the older burgundy passports are among those most susceptible to this issue due to when they were issued, leaving their holders at risk of travel disruption. If you have a burgundy passport , for example, which expires March 31, you will be able to travel up until December 31. The three month window beyond your departure date is the minimum allowed to use your current passport.
Have you been caught out and denied travel because of your passport? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com However, if you are due to travel January 1 and your passport is set to expire March 31, you will need to get a new passport before you travel. The HM Passport Office stopped issuing burgundy British passports before December 31, 2020, as the transition period following the UK's exit from the EU ended on that date.
Travel guru Simon Calder from the Independent has crunched the numbers and reckons "easily a couple of hundred people a day" are being denied boarding. Over the year, he suggests this could add up to more than 100,000 missed holidays due to these stringent regulations. Simon has reached out to airlines, pushi.