Passport rule meant my family flew off without me

A woman has told how she had to watch her husband and young children fly off on holiday without her because of post-Brexit passport rules.

Ellie Hair was due to fly to Lanzarote from Glasgow on Sunday but she was not allowed to check in.

Some European countries now insist passports must be no more than 10 years old from the point of issue.

Ellie's passport was issued in April 2012 and expires in January 2023.

Since Sunday she has been trying in vain to get an updated passport but she said the government website kept crashing, and she has been unable to arrange a face-to-face appointment.

Ellie told BBC Scotland's Drivetime radio programme she arrived at Glasgow Airport in the early hours of Sunday 1 May and tried to check-in for the Tui airways flight.

"I was told I could not get on the flight basically and it was awful because the kids were in floods of tears," she said.

Ellie said the check-in attendant had told her the passport issue "had been everywhere" on the news.

"Everybody I have spoken to has said the same thing - that they didn't have any knowledge of this new EU law," Ellie said.

"Anywhere else in the world they would have accepted my passport for what it says on the tin but because this was the EU and it was a couple of weeks over 10 years old, I'm not allowed in."

Ellie told the BBC she renewed her passport to change her surname when she got married a decade ago.

At that time, people renewing passports were allowed to carry forward up to nine months from their old passport to their new one. This changed after Brexit rules came into force.

Lanzarote is part of Spain which is one of 26 European countries within the Schengen Area of free movement.

Now some EU countries in the Schengen Area are insisting passports must be no more than 10 years old from the point of issue. Passports must also have a minimum validity of three months.

Ellie, who runs an Escape Room business in Glasgow, said: "We are business owners and it is really hard to leave our business. This is a really special holiday and it has been delayed twice over because of Covid. We were originally meant to go in 2020.

"I'm still in a bit of shock to be honest."

Travel expert Simon Calder said the rule had been in place for a long time but the UK only became subject to it after it left the EU.

"I have been doing everything I can to persuade the airlines and the government to push this out," he said.

"It was clear that as soon as people started travelling again, and really over the past few months has been the first time we have been able to travel en masse since Brexit, it was clear this was going to happen.

"To make this worse, airlines and holiday companies are putting in their own versions which are even more stringent."

A statement from the European Commission in relation to a similar incident to Ellie's said a "more generous interpretation of the rules is possible".

A Tui spokesperson said the airline was aware of ongoing confusion regarding passport validity.

"We are in the process of adding a communication to our website to highlight the EU rules around passport validity, and will also be contacting customers due to travel in the next few weeks detailing the passport rules," the spokesperson added.