Do airlines take advantage of a UK passport anomaly?

Simon Calder answers your questions on passport validity and Florida

British passports used to be issued for up to 10 years and nine months (Simon Calder)

Q My passport is valid until April 2024 but I was denied entry to a flight to Spain because over 10 years had elapsed since the passport was issued. My family had to travel without me. Is there no responsibility for the airline to flag this issue at the point of booking or check-in? I suspect they are happy for a few passengers not to travel because it means they can overbook flights.

Jon B

A I am sorry you fell foul of the decision by the UK to be subject to the European Union’s unusual rules on passport validity. Before the Brexit agreement took effect at the start of 2021, British passports could be used in the EU up to and including the expiry date. Some campaigners on the Leave side of the referendum claimed that red tape would not change. But after the democratic vote to leave the EU, the UK asked to become subject to the same rules as more than 60 other countries, such as Guatemala, East Timor and Samoa.

Passports from the UK and all these countries must be valid for at least three months beyond the intended date of departure from the European Union (and the wider Schengen area, including Iceland, Norway and Switzerland). But there is another condition, based on the issue date of the passport, for which British travellers are particularly vulnerable: on the day of entry to the EU, the passport must be less than 10 years old. Unlike most countries, the UK used to issue passports for up to 10 years and nine months, as yours appears to have been.

Carriers’ terms and conditions always make it clear it is the duty of passengers to be compliant. I have asked the airlines whether they could do more. They say that they do warn travellers at check-in about the “10-year” rule. Before you can check in online with Ryanair, for example, you must tick a box saying you know about it.

While many people are in your unenviable position of being denied boarding, I don’t believe that airlines include it in their overbooking strategies; Jet2 and Ryanair do not sell more seats than there are available, and other airlines use historical data on the number of no-shows, rather than those turned away at the gate, to decide how many extra seats to sell.

Jacksonville has a couple of interesting museums but its main strength is the string of beaches to the east (iStock)

Q I’ve been invited to speak at a conference in Gainesville, Florida, next April. The hosts will provide accommodation during the event but I need to make my own travel arrangements. Can you advise on the best route from London, and on where might be a good place to spend a few days before or after the conference? I love cities, but I’m not interested in beaches or Walt Disney World. And I don’t drive.

Name supplied

A Gainesville is in the far north of the Florida peninsula, about halfway between the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean coasts. Were you a driver with a love of beaches, I would commend a round trip taking in St Augustine and Jacksonville. St Augustine is where, in 1565, Admiral Pedro Menendez landed to create North America’s oldest established mainland settlement (55 years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, much further north). The city – more of a town, really has a superb historic quarter. Jacksonville has a couple of interesting museums, but its main strength is the string of beaches to the east.

Instead, take one of the regular buses – either Greyhound or FlixBus – from Gainesville to Orlando, whose downtown is well worth exploring. Walk along Church Street, lined by buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Orange Avenue – the main north-south thoroughfare, lined with handsome buildings with Art Deco flourishes. Then get back on the bus to Tampa. It is a good walking city, with a Hispanic quarter known as Ybor City – previously the domain of cigar makers – and the old Tampa Bay Hotel, now a magnificent museum.

Best of all, you can take a ferry across to another city, St Petersburg, which has some astonishing museums: the Dali, devoted to the great Spanish surrealist, and the vast James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art.

Book an “open-jaw” flight itinerary: out on Delta via Atlanta or American Airlines via Charlotte to Gainesville, then home direct on Virgin Atlantic or British Airways from Tampa. A good travel agent will find the best deal for you.

An absence of empty pages is no obstacle to travelling to Europe but many other countries take a different view (Simon Calder)

Q My wife’s passport expires in 18 months. It has only four blank pages left. Could this become a problem?

Bob H

A Yes – unless you are confining your travel to the European Union. After Brexit, each visit to the EU consumes half a standard passport page (one in, one out, four to a page). But your wife can make unlimited trips to Europe, so long as she meets the twin, oft-repeated rules: her passport is under 10 years old on the day of entry to the EU, and has three months remaining on the intended day of exit.

An absence of empty pages is no obstacle to travelling to Europe. The EU’s Practical Handbook for Border Guards deals explicitly with a passport in which “there are no more available pages”. The handbook instructs: “In such a case, the third-country national should be recommended to apply for a new passport, so that stamps can continue to be affixed there in the future.” An immediate solution, though, is to use a piece of paper. It says “a separate sheet can be used, to which further stamps can be affixed”.

Many other countries take a very different attitude, however – and insist on an empty page so they can apply their own generously dimensioned distinctive stamp or sticker. Some go even further: India, Lesotho and South Africa all demand two blank and adjacent pages, according to the Foreign Office.

Assuming that the available spaces are empty two-page spreads, you could visit two of these three countries without a problem. After that, though, confine your travels to the European Union or apply for a new passport. When you do so, consider whether it is best to pay the extra £11 for a jumbo passport with 16 extra pages. By October 2024, the EU’s Entry/Exit system should be working and there should be no more stamping of British passports.

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