Two holidaymakers from Sussex, both aged 79, should have woken up on Monday morning on the first full day of their 10-day spring holiday in Tenerife.
Instead, after the travel giant Tui repeatedly misrepresented post-Brexit passport rules, Anne and Brian are at home in Hastings.
The couple – who wish to be known only by their first names – both have passports that are valid for their planned trip. But when they called in at the Hastings branch of Tui on Friday morning to go through the check-in process ahead of their flight on Sunday, they were wrongly told Anne’s passport was not valid for the trip.
Staff at the travel agency said nothing could be done and that they had lost the £1,700 cost of their holiday; another Tui representative later wrongly suggested that travel insurance might provide compensation.
In 2021, The Independent informed all the big UK airlines and holiday companies – including Tui – of the precise passport validity rules for British travellers to the European Union after Brexit:
- On the day of entry to the EU, no more than 10 years since the issue date.
- On the day of exit from the EU, at least three months remaining before the expiry date.
The evidence supplied from the Migration and Home Affairs Department of the European Commission made clear that the two conditions are independent of one another.
But the Tui travel agent said, incorrectly, that extra months added to a passport beyond 10 years do not count and that therefore they could not be used after nine years and nine months. With no possibility of obtaining a new passport in the time available, Anne was told she could not fly to the Spanish island.
The Independent has seen a copy of Anne’s passport and has verified that it is valid for travel outbound to anywhere in the European Union up to 25 April 2023 for a stay of up to 90 days, easily covering the duration of the holiday.
On Saturday, Anne’s daughter, Nicola, called Tui’s customer service line on the couple’s behalf to challenge the decision.
“The girl on the phone told us that due to Brexit, the extra months on any passport were now invalid,” Nicola said.
“She wasn’t interested in hearing our evidence and kept on saying it was Brexit and we should Google it.”
Nicola then contacted The Independent for confirmation that the couple could legally travel….
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