A family was forced to abandon a £8,000 holiday after a scanner at the airport ripped the mother’s passport.
Emily Allen had booked an all-inclusive trip to the Greek island of Corfu with her husband and two children, departing London Heathrow.
But while her passport was being scanned at the airport, it was damaged by the machine, rendering the document invalid.
“Initially, I placed my passport into the machine the wrong way around, so slid it back out carefully and turned it around,” she told The Telegraph.
“During this process the photo/observations page, which on my 2016 document is not laminated – just paper covered by a thin film patch – ripped, leaving an inch-long tear across the edge of the passport photo.”
While Ms Allen was originally allegedly advised by Heathrow staff to buy some tape from an airport shop to patch it up, this was not deemed to be a sufficient repair.
Although the family would have been able to fly out of the UK, there was no guarantee that the Greek authorities would accept the document when they landed.
They made the “painful decision” to “simply cancel and go home.”
However, a lot of the elements of the trip were non-refundable, leaving the Allens just under £4,000 out of pocket.
According to Ms Allen, they weren’t able to recoup any of the costs through their travel insurance, despite putting in a claim.
A damaged passport can lead to travellers being denied boarding to a flight or entry to a country, depending on the extent of the issue.
In 2019, a 22-year-old man hit headlines when he missed out on a family holiday to the Caribbean because his passport had a small rip in it.
James Adams had got as far as the boarding gate at Gatwick airport with his parents and brother and sister to catch their Tui flight to Aruba when he was denied boarding.
James, a welder from Suffolk, had successfully used the passport several times recently with no problems.
James’s mother, Claire, called the experience “awful”, saying at the time: “The most obnoxious woman came over, she was shouting from across the airport, ‘He’s not travelling, he won’t get in Aruba. He’s not going.’”
Following pressure from the airline worker, it was decided the two sons would stay at home while the rest of the family got on the plane.
According to HM Passport Office, a damaged passport is one which isn’t in a fit condition to be accepted as proof of identity. Damage can include:
- Indecipherable details
- The laminate has lifted enough to allow the possibility of photo substitution
- Discolouration to the bio-data page
- Chemical or ink spillage on any page
- Missing or detached pages
- The chip or antenna shows through the end paper on the back cover for the new style e-passports
- The chip has been identified as damaged after investigation
Airlines typically say: “We may decide to refuse to carry you or your baggage if the following has happened or we reasonably believe may happen ... you have not, or do not appear to have, valid travel documents.”
They may be more likely to err on the side of caution as they can incur fines for allowing a passenger to fly with inadequate documentation; these average $3,500 (£2,780) per passenger.
