New travelling rules brought in by Brexit meant that two young sisters had to fly out to Spain without their mum who was turned away at the airport. Kate Barke was stopped at the gate after she and her two daughters, aged nine and 11, had checked in their bags and went through security as usual at Stansted Airport.
The Mirror reports the family were about to board the Ryanair flight to Palma de Mallorca when Kate was told her passport did not meet new Brexit rules, even though it does not expire until February next year. Her daughters were still able to board the plane with their aunt who was travelling under a separate booking.
But Kate said the girls were "hysterical" when she was forced to leave them and walk back through the terminal alone, leaving herself £500 out of pocket. Ryanair insists she was "correctly denied travel".
“At the gate about to board the plane, the girl said ‘you can’t get on the plane’,” she told the Independent. “I was panicking, they’re hysterical. It was hugely traumatic. There was no offer of help or assistance. I then had to walk back through the terminal to find my baggage.”
"I was given very little time, support or options in a very upsetting and stressful situation, 16 minutes before the flight was about to depart."
Kate ran into difficulty with her passport due to new Brexit rules which state that passports for 'third country' nationals must be issued less than 10 years ago on the day of entry to the EU.
She described the system as "flawed" and said: "If check-in only requires the expiry date of a passport when in actual fact it’s the issue date that it boils down to, and subsequently can result in this kind of horrendous situation, the aviation industry has some big changes to put in place," she urged.
Ryanair told the Mirror that the passenger was "correctly denied travel" as her passport did not meet the entry requirements for travel within the EU to Spain.
A spokesperson said: "Once advised by our handling agents in London Stansted that she was not permitted to take this flight to Spain with her two children, the passenger advised our handling agents that her sister-in-law was also taking the same flight and could accompany her two children on the flight.
"Her sister-in-law returned to the airport terminal to collect this passenger’s two children, and accompanied them on the flight to Palma. This passenger’s claim that the staff did not make rigorous checks to allow the children fly without her is completely false.
"This passenger – the children’s parent – directly authorised that her sister-in-law could accompany them. At no time were these children unaccompanied and as the permission was provided directly from the children’s parent, they were permitted to travel with the passenger’s sister-in-law.”
