Devastated woman finds passport clipped days before £4,000 family holiday
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Imagine, you're packed up, ready to go on the holiday of a lifetime, and your passport is left unusable because of an error.
That's what happened to nail tech Bethany Clarke, who was jetting off to Ibiza on a £4,000 holiday.
The dedicated mum had sent her passport off to support her son's application, but when the passport came back she found it was invalidated with the corner clipped.
Bethany said of the ordeal: "When I saw the envelope sticking out the letter box I thought: 'Great. My passport is back.
"When I opened it and found the corner cut off I nearly cried.
"I was frightened we would have to cancel the holiday and was in a real panic."
After some pretty understandable panicking, Bethany headed from her home in Barnsley to Durham to have the issue sorted.
That's not where Bethany's trouble stopped as she went to her 2 pm appointment only to find out that they didn't have her name on the list, so she waited around till past 6:30 and paid £177 to have the matter resolved.
Bethany said of the issue: "Getting my passport invalidated was the last thing I needed nine days before the holiday we were all looking forward to."
The passport office has since apologised and said that they would refund the fee.
Bethan isn't the only holiday maker facing complete travel chaos at the minute, because getting your passport sorted might only be half of the trouble.
As a spate of new Ryanair cabin crew strikes kicked off this week, 8 August.
The strikes are scheduled to continue until January 2023, with the airline's Spanish crew striking for higher pay and better working conditions.
So, how will this impact your holiday plans? Well 24-hour strikes are expected to impact up to 1.4 million passengers, or around 130,600 travellers every day.
Union groups USO and Sitclpa have backed the strike, with USO leader Lidia Aransanz saying: “As the company has been unable to listen to the workers, we have been forced to call new strike days.”
However, Ryanair has insisted passengers shouldn’t expect any problems, saying in a statement: “Recent strikes by USO/SITCPLA have been poorly supported with minimal effect.”
Even so, keep and eye on your flight times and check for strikes before travelling.
LADBible has gone to Ryanair for comment.
