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British Airways is misleading passengers with incorrect information about passport validity.
BA claims: “To travel on an international flight your passport must have been issued less than 10 years before the date you enter a country.”
This is incorrect. The only part of the world that is concerned with issue dates as well as expiry dates of passports is the European Union and wider Schengen Area.
In the vast majority of countries British Airways serves, the issue date of a visitor’s passport is irrelevant.
Many countries, including the US, Australia, Canada and Mexico, will gladly admit travellers whose passports were issued over 10 years ago, as long as they have not expired.
For many years until September 2018, following the Brexit vote, the UK routinely issued passports valid for up to 10 years and nine months. The idea was to award “unspent” time on a previous passport to the new travel document.
Such passports remain valid for the European Union up to their 10th birthday, and for many other countries until the expiry date.
The Independent was alerted to the false information at ba.com by a US-bound traveller who had taken a day off work to get an emergency passport appointment, even though the old travel document was valid for America.
One week after The Independent pointed out the error and asked for the information to be corrected, it remains online.
British Airways has so far declined to respond on the subject. Any passenger who is wrongly denied boarding as a result of an airline misinterpreting passport rules can claim cash compensation.
BA joins a long list of airlines – including easyJet and Ryanair – that have misrepresented passport validity rules. Those budget carriers corrected their policies after The Independent made representations. In addition, the UK government now gives the correct advice online, after many months in which it was incorrect.
Every country outside the EU and Schengen Area sets its own requirements in terms of passport validity.
The restrictions on passport issue and expiry dates for Europe do not apply for British travellers to Ireland.
