A woman is facing the prospect of losing almost £1,000 in holiday costs after failing to receive her son's passport after an excruciating delay in processing times.
Jenny Craig, 43, said she applied for a passport renewal for her son Isaac 12 weeks ago. The family is due to travel to Italy in just under a month but are now concerned that the holiday may not go ahead. Jenny said the family had to cancel a previous holiday to Morocco at Easter due to the same issue.
“We waited until a week before we cancelled our trip to Marrakech… we knew it wasn’t going to happen,” she told the Mirror. “We are trying to go to Italy in May, in about four weeks’ time. I’m pretty sure it won’t happen.
“If we don’t get confirmation that the passport has been processed by the end of next week, then we’ll assume it won’t happen for us. “Getting through to someone has got worse. I calculated that I’ve probably spent two days on hold. Each time I call, there is an average time of an hour and a half on hold. I don’t know how many calls I’ve made now.”
Delays in passport processing could affect almost a million holidaymakers and cost £1.1billion in cancelled trips this summer, according to new research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). There have also been warnings about a spike in passport applications following the easing of international travel rules after the Covid pandemic. The rules have also become complex since Brexit as Brits can no longer travel to the EU on a passport that is about to expire.
Under Schengen area rules, your passport must be less than 10 years old on the day you enter the country, and valid for at least three months after the day you plan to leave. The three-month rule does not apply to Ireland but does apply to some non-EU countries too such as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City.
The number of valid UK passports fell by more than 2.5 million during the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to figures obtained by the PA news agency from the Passport Office through a freedom of information request. A total of 48.9 million passports were in circulation at the end of 2021 - 2.6 million less than at the end of 2019.
"Data from the VisitBritain Covid-19 Consumer Sentiment Tracker shows that more than two in five are planning an overseas trip in the coming 12 months," said the Centre for Economics and Business Research. "Assuming that passport holders are somewhat more likely to have travel plans than the population as a whole and that a quarter of those will have made a booking leaves just under one million holiday makers at risk due to the delays."
A Home Office spokesperson said the figures on delays were "unverified and nonsensical". They added: "For example, unlike their bogus claims over 90% of applications completed in January-March of this year were processed in six weeks." they added.
“The vast majority of passport applications are being processed within the ten week service standard we have had in place, and clearly advertised, since April 2021. Anyone who needs to renew their passport ahead of the summer, is encouraged to do so now.”
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