British Airways corrects online advice about passport validity

Exclusive: BA took 10 days to remove the false assertions from its website

On track: London Heathrow airport Terminal 5, the home of British Airways (Simon Calder)

British Airways has finally corrected misleading advice about passport validity on its website.

BA had claimed, wrongly: “To travel on an international flight your passport must have been issued less than 10 years before the date you enter a country.”

Many UK passports issued before September 2018 are valid for more than 10 years. It was customary for HM Passport Office to add up to nine months of unexpired time for renewals. The policy ended as part of the Brexit changes made by the last government.

The Independent estimates that around 15 million British travellers still have passports issued before September 2018, and many of those will be valid for over 10 years.

Fortunately, 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 admit travellers whose passports were issued over 10 years ago.

Those nations allow British visitors to stay up to and including the expiry date of the passport; many other countries require a certain length of time before expiry, typically three or six months.

The only part of the world that is concerned with the issue date as well as the expiry date of a passport is the European Union and wider Schengen Area.

On 22 July The Independent was alerted to BA’s misinformation by a US-bound traveller who had taken a day off work to attend an emergency passport renewal appointment on the basis of the airline’s advice. They learnt only later that their existing travel document would have been valid for America.

From 1 August British Airways’ website has been updated with the incorrect information removed.

The airline now says, correctly, than British passport holder who wish to travel to an EU member state (except Ireland) or the Schengen Area nations of Switzerland, Norway and Iceland must carry a passport “issued less than 10 years before the date you enter the country”.

A second condition applies for UK visitors to the European Union: on the intended day of departure from the EU, the passport must have at least three months to run.