Ryanair has doubled down after a woman spoke of her 'traumatic' experience of being refused entry on to her flight due to passport complications. Caroline Smith, 40, said the airline refused to let her on the plane on April 28 because of a problem with the issue date on her passport, leading to her almost missing out on a holiday to celebrate her 10-year wedding anniversary.
Caroline, from Bingham, said she had already checked in online before arriving at Stansted Airport for a holiday to Ibiza to celebrate her and her husband Dan's 10-year wedding anniversary, as well as Dan's 40th birthday. She says nobody flagged up any issues when she checked in online but arrived to find that Ryanair would not be allowing her to board the plane.
Caroline's passport expiration date is not until March 2023, but the issue date on her passport is for June, which presented a problem with Ryanair that she labelled "not super clear." Fortunately, Caroline was able to board a flight to her destination with Jet2 an hour after she was originally supposed to fly, with Jet2 allowing her to board.
Mrs Smith had previously spoken to Nottinghamshire Live to highlight the confusion that she went through, in the hope other people would not experience a similar situation. Ryanair has now issued a statement in response to the confusion that stopped Mrs Smith from boarding her flight.
A Ryanair spokesperson said: "This passenger was correctly refused travel at Stansted Airport on 28 April last as her passport did not meet the entry requirements for travel to the EU (Spain) which are:
- Passports must be issued within 10 years of the date of departure into the EU.
- The passport must be valid for at least three months from the return date of travel from the EU.
"Ms. Smith’s passport was issued on 20 June 2012 and is therefore no longer valid for travel to/from the EU after 20 March 2022 (which is 3 months before the 10-year anniversary of issue on 20 June 2022). Therefore, she did not have the required 3 months validity remaining on her passport before her outbound flight on 28 April 2022 or her return flight on 1 May 2022.
"Ryanair requires each passenger to ensure that their passport is valid for travel (as set out in 1 & 2 above) on both the date of their outbound and return flight dates."
