Woman blocked from £700 holiday over tiny passport error as warning issued
A woman who wasn't allowed to go on holiday says she was 'shocked' and 'gutted' that a small problem with her passport prevented her from travelling.
Rachael Norton-Voysey has said that Ryanair staff were 'petty' not to let her fly to Lanzarote for a £700 holiday she and a friend had booked for 4 June.
When the 33-year-old got to her boarding gate the staff told her that because there was a rip in her passport she couldn't board the plane, so Rachael had to stay home and her friend decided not to go it alone.
The rip in her passport is on the photo page and is around 1.5cm long, but Rachael says it 'doesn't obscure' details or her picture.
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Guidance from the UK government says if your passport is ripped then it's counted as 'damaged' and you need to get it replaced as soon as possible otherwise you run the risk of not being able to fly, sadly for Rachael she fell foul of this risk.
"It was gutting for us both," the Birmingham woman said of being told she couldn't get on the flight for her holiday.
"We got to the gate and handed in my passport at that point to get onto the plane and he said it was ripped and they wouldn't let us through.
"It was horrible. That feeling where your stomach just drops knowing we wouldn't be going on holiday at that point. There's no arguing with them once they do that."
She said that since her friend 'didn't want to go without me' they had to sit there at their gate and wait for everyone else to board the plane they'd booked seats on, then staff escorted them back out as they'd passed through security to get to that point.
Rachael said it came as a shock because she'd used the passport 'for ages' and the damage was just a 'tiny rip', with her adding she understood 'where they're coming from but it is really petty in my opinion'.
The Birmingham woman and her friend are hoping they can make it to Lanzarote in September as they were able to rearrange their booking, and she wants to warn others not to fall foul of her situation.
"The journey home was so sad. Both of us had worked so hard to get up to that point. It was so painful," she said, explaining that she'd had the passport for eight years and didn't know when the rip happened.
"I did put in a complaint letter just saying that I thought it was a little bit mean and that they should be a bit more consistent considering they've let me fly on this passport before.
"I had no reason to worry about it, which is the thing that's annoyed me."
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: "This passenger was correctly refused travel from Birmingham to Lanzarote (4 June) as her passport was damaged and therefore not valid for travel."
Joe Harker