Passport issues left a Romford woman without a holiday, hundreds of pounds out of pocket and left feeling humiliated after she and her godson’s dream trip to Portugal went up in smoke.
Johanne Morris and nine-year-old Chayce Pearson, who is autistic, were due to flight out by easyJet to the southern European country in April, but were turned back at the boarding gates after being told her passport was invalid. This was because of post-Brexit travel rules into Europe.
As well as the shock at being refused to board the plane, Johanne also claims the pair were left embarrassed after being frogmarched through the airport. And what is worse, she says easyJet will only refund the £16 taxes, but nothing more, reports the Mirror.
Her passport was issued on July 9, 2012, and according to government travel laws your passport must be “issued less than ten years before the date you enter the country” and “valid for at least three months after the day you plan to leave”. However, she claimed when she renewed her old passport back in 2012, she was given a month from the old one, onto the new one, meaning her passport expired on August 9, this year.
Due to that, and the fact she was travelling out on April 24, for a week, she didn’t meet the government’s required rules for travelling as her passport wasn’t valid for the three months after her trip. This was because Johanne claimed they had been going off the older dates without the extension she said she’d been granted.
However, Johanne says she had already logged the information on her passport’s expiry date on the airlines app, long before they were refused boarding. After heading through security and scanning their boarding passes, it wasn’t until right up at the boarding gates that they ran into problems.
She said: “I was asked to scan my boarding pass on the machine which I did. It then showed a notification stating unable to fly in red writing.
“The lady then asked me for my passport which I was happy to provide. But I was confused on what was happening as she didn’t explain to me why she needed my passport or why that message popped up after I had scanned my boarding pass.”
Johanne was then told she couldn’t board. She described being “in a state of confusion and shock” as she was told there was nothing she could do about it.
She was told to walk back through the airport alone to an information desk, but given no help getting there. Once there, they found it unmanned so she called the easyJet helpline and says she was told if she wanted a refund she would have to go through her travel insurance.
Johanne said she and her godson were then left waiting for over an hour at the desk before a member of staff approached them. Johanne said: “We were treated like criminals being escorted through the airport.
“Every so often the member of staff would let people know as we were walking through that we didn’t make it to Portugal. I found this to be very upsetting and left us in a state of embarrassment.
“We were both up from about three o’clock. It’s the whole ordeal and how we were treated.”
When she rang up easyJet, they told her she could be refunded the £16 taxes, but nothing more. She had forked out £260.28 for their travels in total as well as paying for a Covid test at Gatwick and a private car transfer in Portugal, all of which she now has lost for nothing.
A spokesperson for easyJet said: “easyJet follows current government rules on passport validity, as set out by governments where we operate. As Ms Morris’ passport was unfortunately not valid for her flight, we were unable to allow her to travel on this occasion.
“We remind customers during booking and before they travel via email to ensure they are aware of the travel requirements for the destination they are flying to and it is customers’ responsibility to ensure they have the correct valid documentation for travel. We are sorry to hear about Ms Morris’ experience when leaving the airport and we are looking into this with our ground handling provider and the airport.”
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