Ryanair staff refused to let a teenager board a flight from Glasgow Prestwick amid claims his passport had expired - despite it being in-date for another five months.
Zak Schoneville, from Motherwell, Lanarkshire, had been due to fly out with family to the sunshine isle of Tenerife on Monday, May 2.
The 15-year-old had arrived at the airport with parents Lisa and Neil and younger sister, Lily, 13, at 4am ahead of the 6.10am take-off.
But, having arrived at the gate, Ryanair told the family that the teen was unable to board the plane.
Staff claimed that Zak's passport had expired - even though it still has five months to run, The Mirror reports.
Zak's passport was issued in March, 2017 and has an expiry date of 31 October, 2022. This meets the current EU requirement of being less than 10 years old and having at least three months' validity left on the passenger's return date.
That means it is legal for travel in Spain and all other EU countries up to July 31 this year.
Speaking out about the incident, 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."
This 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 added: "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."
Back home in 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.
A Ryanair statement on passport validity said: "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."
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