A teenager was barred from boarding a Ryanair jet and told he couldn’t fly - even though his passport still had five months left to run.
Zak Shoneville, aged 15, was left fuming after he and his family tried to go away to Tenerife on Monday, May 2. He was barred from getting on the aircraft and told that his passport had expired.
Zak was with mum and dad Lisa and Neil and sister Lily, 13, and had arrived at Glasgow Prestwick airport at 4am ahead of the 6.10am flight. Although the airline told him his passport was no longer valid, he says it was issued in March 2017 and has an expiry date of October 31 2022, the Mirror reports.
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The European Union requirements for the travel document are that it is less than 10 years old and has at least three months’ validity on the passenger’s return date. The passport is legal for travel in Spain and all other EU nations up to 31 July this year. But Ryanair told Zak it had already expired.
Mum Lisa Schoneville told The Independent : “He explained this was due to Brexit and that passports were only valid for five or 10 years from the date of issue. “We didn’t want to cause a scene at the check in desk so we left and sat down to research this further.
“We couldn’t find any information on this rule, and could only find the information stated about the 10-year passport rule.” The rule being referred to is the EU requirement that British passports are less than 10 years old on the day of travel to Europe.
All children’s passports, which are valid for a maximum of five years and nine months, automatically meet this requirement. Ms Schoneville said: “We asked on numerous occasions for links to websites but were never provided with any physical evidence.
“They told us they had called ‘Ryanair Immigration’ and they advised them to refuse our travel. “We asked them to call again in front of us so we could hear what they had to say. ‘Ryanair Immigration’ confirmed we were not allowed to travel.”
When the devastated family got back home to Motherwell they called Ryanair again and were told that Zak needed six months on his passport prior to travelling to the EU and three months on his passport for travelling back to the UK. However these requirements are incorrect.
Speaking on passport validity, a Ryanair spokesperson: “Ryanair complies with all European Commission travel regulations and passengers travelling between the EU and the UK after the end of the transition period must have a passport that is not valid for more than 10 years.” Last week easyJet became the last major UK airline to adopt the correct European rules on passport validity. The carrier is now paying compensation to passengers who were wrongly denied boarding.
