Stephen Jackson was expecting to spend the weekend playing golf in Spain. Along with three friends, the 66-year-old retired aeronautical engineer from Preston travelled to Manchester airport in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The four were booked on the 6.20am easyJet flight, which was due to touch down at Alicante airport around 10am – in good time for a round of golf.
Mr Jackson has a passport valid for travel out to Spain and the rest of the European Union until 10 December 2024 for a stay of up to 90 days.
But ground staff working for easyJet insisted it was not valid and turned him away.
Mr Jackson said: “When we arrived at the airport we self-checked in our golf bags and attached the baggage label.
“When going to the bag drop off point an easyJet employee asked to see my passport which I did.
“She then informed me that my passport was invalid, saying ‘The expiry date is now 10 years from the issue date and that there was less than three months from that on my return home’.”
Since Brexit, UK passports must meet two conditions for travel to the European Union:
- No older than 10 years on the day of outbound travel.
- At least three months to expiry date on the intended day of inbound travel.
Mr Jackson’s passport comfortably met both these conditions.
EasyJet, along with Ryanair and the UK government, wrongly combined these conditions for many months until they agreed to apply the actual rules as imposed by Brussels and notified to them by The Independent three years ago. But mistakes are evidently continuing.
At Manchester, Mr Jackson showed the ground staff member the Foreign Office passport guidelines from the UK government website.
“She said that I was incorrect and I could not board,” he said. “I had the same conversation with a supervisor and the same result. Realising I could not win, I set off home by train, leaving the other three to go to Spain.”
When Mr Jackson alerted The Independent, easyJet swiftly investigated and apologised.
A spokesperson said: “We are very sorry that Mr Jackson was incorrectly denied boarding on his flight from Manchester to Alicante.
“This was due to a misunderstanding at the gate of the passport validity rules for travel to Spain and we are following up with our ground handling agent in Manchester…
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