The US passport office is completely overwhelmed with applications and still facing a staffing shortage that's preventing thousands of travellers from getting their paperwork in time for tickets they've already bought.
So grim is the outlook that US officials aren’t even denying the problem or predicting when it will ease.
They’re blaming the epic wait times on lingering pandemic-related staffing shortages and a pause in online processing this year. That has flooded the passport agency with a record-busting 500,000 applications a week.
