If you have a mauve UK passport, this might mean you.
There’s a story in the papers today about a traveller with Royal connections who was denied boarding at the weekend because his passport was more than ten years old, despite having a long expiry date.
Precisely the same thing happened to me at Heathrow last week. Apparantly the EU are not interested in the actual expiry printed in the passport, only the date of issue. The expiry is taken into account for the minimum validity once you travel, however.
I’d never heard of this rule, or come across it during the flight booking process. Niether had some of the immigration officials I spoke to on my way back out of the airport. According to one of them, LHR is unique amongst major airports worldwide in not having a desk for emergency travel papers. They have one at Helsinki, for instance.
But maybe I got off lightly. Suppose I had made my original plan of taking the Warrior to Texel and onwards to Scandinavia? 3 days of continuous bad weather, caused by the blocking high in the Baltic, meant that the route was plauged by streams of IMC that never relented, the first time I’ve had to abandon one of these VFR trips in many years. Suppose I’d landed in Texel? There’s already pressure to remove Texel’s ‘International’ status (the clue is in the name of the airport) and some border operation had seen my FPL and objected, later overruled by intervention of the airport management. But that wiped the one day on which the wx might have co-operated.
Texel remains open for international traffic until the end of August, at least. But no doubt my passport would have got good scrutiny. Would I have been told to turn round and fly back, in the face of deteriorating weather? Happily, I’ll never know. Due to the strike, there’s no ‘one day’ passport service in UK. So today I’m off the Peterborough, but will still have to wait a week for the new passport to come in the mail.
How long is a “long expiry” passport?
I thought 10 years was the max expiry date on an EU passport?
Up to around 2017, UK passports were issued based on the expiry of the previous passport, so you got a full 10 years when renewing early. This is how you can have a passport issued more than 10 years ago, but still claiming to be valid, to November in my case.
You only get max 10.75Y (9 months added) on the old UK passport (before 2016)? you can’t get 15 years renewing early?
Someone can get caught by this on travel to EU as it is only possible with passports valid from date of issue + 9.5Y
Minimum 5 years and maximum 10 years validity is an ICAO “recommendation”. See e.g. page 33 of the Guide for Assessing Security of Handling and Issuance of Travel Documents – Part 1
[ local copy ] section “Travel Document Validity Period”
None of this has been an issue until now – my case and now the one in the paper
Heathrow immigration told me they’d only heard of one other case. They also said EU countries had been turning a blind eye. So I strongly suspect something changed behind closed doors.
It appears (this may be contentious) that a UK passport is OK for entry to EU up to the day before the 10 yr anniversary, but also has to have 3 (some say 6) months continuing validity. In practice that means you only get 9.5 yrs EU travel as Ibra says.
I’d heard about it a few years ago, and although the EU Regulation dates back to at least 2016, it didn’t affect British passport holders until the end of the transition period. Even after the end of the transition period, it apparently wasn’t often enforced, although that has now changed.
There’s been absolutely tonnes of publicity about this, including a great number of stories in the press about people being denied boarding (for this reason I made sure I renewed before the 10 years on my passport even though it was “valid” for another 6, I always get extra scrutiny anyway with an Isle of Man passport).
I’d never considered the GA angle though. I don’t think they could force you to fly back VFR through unsuitable weather, but I suspect the alternative could be pretty terrible depending on how unreasonable the immigration officers are, and the default of an immigration officer is to be unreasonable (it’s the kind of job that attracts that kind of personality). It’d be an awful choice for instance to have to decide between flying into deteriorating weather or be deported and have all the hassle of trying to recover the aircraft later after having possibly been made “persona non grata” in that country (deportation usually puts an end to your visa free travel to a country). Hopefully no one gets to find out.
Fair comment Alioth and indeed I was all set to renew with photos in hand when they announced a ‘10 week strike’ back in March. Since my passport was still valid until November (I thought) I decided not to take the risk of sending it in.
I totally missed the ‘tons of publicity’ and would be glad to have any links to this since it affects my thoughts on seeking compensation etc..
I hadn’t even considered the ‘deportation’ angle and this enhances my gratitude to the weather gods and bickering border officials who obstructed my flight! Incidentally here’s the mail I got from the ‘GA Center’:
Good evening sir/madam,
I just saw your flight plan to Texel for this evening.
I want to adjust you to the fact that Texel is not an international airport. As a result, you are not allowed to land from outside the Schengen area.
Kind regards,
_Operator__
………………………………………………………………
Koninklijke Marechaussee
Landelijk Tactisch Commando
Targeting Center Borders (TCB)
Camp New Amsterdam | Dolderseweg 34 | 3712 BR | Huis ter Heide
Gebouw A44A | Kamernummer 29
Postbus 90200 | 2509 LP | Den Haag | MPC 54A
T +31 (0) 88 9511660
cid:[email protected]
it actually never had immigration status in AD2.2 (see also GEN1.2 & AD1.3) but bizarrely always allowed flight from UK
Yeah, right, and then this happens.
Interesting post, Aveling. I’ve just checked my passport and it is valid for exactly 10 years.
