A ripped passport, even if only a tiny tear, can doom an airline trip, as a family in England recently found when trying to fly to Spain.
Tear In Passport Dooms Airplane Trip To Spain
The Burton family was thrilled to escape the cold winter in England and fly to Alicante, Spain (ALC) to usher in 2024 and spend eight days relaxing. However, when the family showed up at the gate to board their Ryanair flight from East Midlands (EMA), 19-year-old Jake Burton was denied boarding because of a rip in his passport.
How bad was it? A one-centimeter (0.39 inch) tear…
For this case, the pertinent UK regulations concerning damaged passports state:
A damaged passport is one which the customer cannot use as proof of identity because of its condition.
Damage can include:
- when the personal details or observation page are unreadable
- laminate peeling or lifting away from the personal details page
- unreadable security details
- missing or detached pages
- where the front, back or personal details page has been cut
- damage or discolouration to any part of the passport caused, for example, by:
- water
- chemical or ink spills
- tears
- rips
- bite marks
Airlines are given leeway in determining whether to deny boarding to a family.
In a public statement confirming the incident, Ryanair insisted that it had made the right call:
“This 19-year-old adult passenger was correctly refused travel on this flight from East Midlands to Alicante (28 Dec) by the gate agent at East Midlands Airport as his passport was damaged and therefore not valid for travel.”
Gate agents apparently suggested the family try a different airline and when re-entering the UK, border agents scoffed at the notion that the passport was not valid for travel.
However, the concern for Ryanair was not whether Jake would be allowed back into the United Kingdom, but whether he would be admitted into Spain. If he was not, Ryanair would be on the hook to transport him back and be liable for a potential fine from the Spanish government.
I don’t know that Ryanair ultimately made the right call, but I do understand that the budget carrier is going to hedge its bets in situations like this because the cost of being turned away at the Spanish border is much higher than the marginal price of the ticket.
Jake suggested his family go ahead without him, but they declined and everyone New Year’s Eve in East Midlands.
CONCLUSION
As regrettable as I find the denied boarding, it is an important reminder that even a tiny tear in your passport can doom your trip. Keep your passport safe (I keep mine in a leather case) and never put it in the pocket of your trousers (my old one got damaged by doing so). Even though a tear like the one in Jake’s passport above seems so immaterial, it cost him a holiday in Spain. If your passport does get ripped, the only way to have absolute peace of mind that there will not be passport issues when traveling is to replace the passport.
Just come visit the US southern border. It’s warm, sunny, no documentation needed.
…and the Texas governor will give you a free bus ride to NYC; or better yet, to New Jersey with a Metro pass to NYC Penn Station.
Better yet…ask for the Biden line…and he will fly you to wherever you want to go. Much faster.
@ David — Just rude, hateful Trump-loving “Christians” to greet you.
@gene
People like you are harmful to our society. I have nothing but contempt for you and pray you get cancer.
What I find annoying is that some border officers will insist on making you take the passport out of its case. I can sort of understand if they want to do it themselves on their desk (and happy to give them permission to do it), but I am standing there with no desk space and also have bags hanging around my neck and a cabin bag that often doesn’t balance properly, do give me a break.
As I have recently obtained a second citizenship, I look forward to receiving my new passport and the considerable peace of mind that comes with the fact that I can travel even if one passport gets lost/stolen/too close to expiry.
That’s what I love passports with electronic chips and you have zero interaction with humans. I use that in Europe, US and now in Brazil. DYI at its best.
Is Brazil no longer stamping passports, even for foreigners?
I have Brazilian passport. Just visited the country after 2 years and they now have electronic gates for Brazilian passport holders exactly like you find in the EU. Scanned the passport, got my face scanned and was good to go. I was surprised that even my kids that are under 18 were able to use the e-gates.
I can confirm that I had the same experience in Uruguay with an EU passport. Or actually almost the same, as it didn’t work on the way in but it did on the way out, so I only have an entry stamp (good job I am not planning to return soon then!). Argentina have stopped stamping EU passports as well, but you still do need to see an officer on both entry and exit.
Just to be clear, you have to see an immigration officer to leave Brazil no matter if you carry Brazilian passport or not. I just went through that process and it was a painful almost 2 hours in line to go through. They never learn.
@PM … Sympathy for you … however perhaps the airlines allow passengers to carry too many bags and/or “service dogs” on the airplane ? How about one coat and one small satchel ?
@alert I can’t really travel light when I am flying long haul. I have to carry my CPAP machine onboard and usually have convoluted itineraries; I refuse to fly in Y, can’t always find the redemption seats I want, and can’t afford/justify the convenience premium for a full-fat business class ticket, so I usually end up with long connections, separate tickets, changes of airports and so on. I just came back from Argentina, flying EZE-GRU-ADD-GVA-MAN. That was about 26 hours on planes and about 42 together with the time spent at the airports, I really did push the boundaries of hand luggage even with a generous J allowance.
When I am on short haul, I just check everything in. I only take the laptop briefcase with me so that I can maximise my time in the lounge and board last without worrying about overhead space.
Be careful if you travel with both of your passports with you on the same trip. If you enter a foreign country under one passport and then attempt to leave that country under a different passport you may have some troubles with this. This happened to me several years ago and resulted in some delay and questioning. Ultimately I was allowed to proceed on my way back then, but these days it might be different.
I am actually minded to leave one back home in a safe deposit box so that a relative can retrieve it and get it couriered to me in case I visit a ‘difficult’ destination and get robbed or something.
Tell him to thank Brexit for his ordeal. That’s the only reason he would have to show a passport when entering Spain. Otherwise, he would be traveling with his ID.
Plot twist: we don’t have national ID cards in the UK, and driving licences aren’t acceptable either, maybe as part of the CTA you can fly as far as Ireland with one if you are lucky (I think that you can’t even use them for air travel wholly within Schengen)!
What ID? The UK does not issue national ID cards (unlike Spain, France, Italy, Belgium and most other EU countries), and a driving license has never been a valid travel document. He would’ve also needed a valid passport to travel from the UK to Spain pre-Brexit.
Not that I support Brexit: I’m a European living in the UK, and the country is certainly worse off now than when it was an EU Member State.
@Mike … However , it is now FREE to use pounds rather than kilograms . Freedom is a good thing , no ?
Ok, my bad. I heard from a friend living in the UK that he used to travel within the EU with his ID card but maybe he was a dual national. I have many friends in the UK and they say their lives became much harder after Brexit. Traveling within the EU is a pain, hiring EU nationals to work in the UK is a pain, etc… People got what they asked for.
Photo identity cards did exist in the UK for a period of time, but very few people got them. You can read about the Identity cards act of 2006 if interested. I don’t know if these were valid for plane travel.
When the UK was in the EU, travel within the EU shouldn’t have required government issued ID to cross the borders. At least my recollection is that it didn’t if not traveling by plane.
Mike, maybe I’m remembering wrong… my recollection is that pre-brexit I took the Eurostar to Europe without showing my passport, maybe one of the ferries to France too. This was many years back, maybe I’m just forgetting.
I think there were checks because UK was never in the Schengen Zone, but an ID card would have sufficed.
Matthew is correct, there’s always been a passport control process but EU identity cards were accepted by the UK until October 2022 or something.
It may well still be possible to travel from the UK to the EU only on an ID card, I certainly haven’t got any issues getting through passport control with mine when I arrive into the EU from the UK or any other non-Schengen country (I typically ensure my passport is secured in a zipped pocket in my briefcase or carry-on because the ID card is much easier to replace if lost/damaged)- but you can’t use it for entering the UK.
I haven’t travelled through ALC in a while but, down here at ACE, arrivals from the UK are able and encouraged to use e-gates, so a tear of that magnitude would have zero impact.
I saw this story somewhere else, and both reported UK border officials seeing no issue on his reentry. Why would that happen? There is no exit immigration in the UK. Would he not just exit the airport? How exactly does that work?
What do you mean there is no exit immigration in the UK? After Brexit, travel for UK people became way more complicated. They can’t just fly into the EU or come back as they wish. They need passport control to enter in Spain and to get back to the UK.
This has nothing to do with Brexit. The UK doesn’t have exit immigration for any flights, nor has it ever. I don’t understand how he ever presented his passport to UK Border Force since he never left.
Of course it has everything to do with Brexit. He did have to present his passport at check in because now a UK citizen needs a passport to travel to Spain. Before that it was like a domestic travel. That is where the gate agent denied his travel. As for the border agent, I don’t know how he got to them if he never left the country.
That’s incorrect. The UK does not have an ID card system and, on intra-Schengen flights, a UK passport holder needed a passport to travel pre-Brexit as a valid for of ID. UK-Spain has never been like ‘domestic travel’, as UK has never been part of Schengen.
Jake was denied boarding at the gate, so in order to exit the airport he had to leave the secured area. It appears that in leaving the secured side of the airport the border agent looked at the passport. A competing airline was willing to let him fly with it, but didn’t have capacity.
@Jerry: while there are no exit controls in the UK, unlike the USA once you are in the departure zone you are considered out of the country and need to go through passport control to get back in.
Thanks. I didn’t realize that. CTA flights go from the same gates as int’l, so presumably not all pax have a passport.
Yes, there’s a contradiction in these stories. Matthew’s story mentions him being advised to try a different airline and UK border officials at reentry scoffing at the idea that his passport was invalid. But the story also says the family didn’t travel and spent the holidays in the UK. And as far as I know, entry to the UK for citizens is now entirely through E-Gates.
There are still manned desks available, I think kids under 10 have to visit one no matter what.
If you read the link embedded in the word “thrilled” at the beginning of the story it explains the scenario a bit more clearly.
@Josh: The family returned to the airport lobby (meaning it had to go through passport control) and then inquired with an alternate low-cost-carrier about flying to Spain, then decided it was not worthwhile and just went home.
@Jerry … per the story : Ryanair checked his passport to be sure he had documentation . JAL and LH check my passport before taking me to Japan or Germany .
This passport story reminded me of many years ago when I used to fly to Indonesia very often. A work colleague was way too cheap to get a new passport and when running out of pages he would simply pull out very carefully his older Indonesian visas that were simply glued in his passport (it took a full page) and make that page empty again for a new visa. Old times, it worked perfectly.
That’s a reason to use a passport wallet. I have a passport wallet of a neutral country to protect my passport from damage and to hide the US passport design on the outside if the plane is ever hijacked. Hijackings were common in the 1960’s and 70’s but now terrorists just blow up the plane killing everyone, not hostage taking of Americans and Israelis.
Countries for passport covers that I’d recommend include:
if you are Black, Nigeria
if you are White and dark haired, Argentina
if you are White and blond, Estonia
if you are Asian, Japan or Thailand (being Thai didn’t help in Gaza but eventually the Thai government paid for their release)
Mine is a plain leather cover which I got as a gift gift from my first F flight (on Asiana, sadly not available anymore), and I am tempted to buy an airline-themed one (TAP have one which looks pretty understated , but it’s a combined wallet/passport holder, so I will probably go for this AF one which is also a bit cheaper https://shopping.airfrance.com/en/product/protege-passeport-tricolore-bleu ).
Have these in different colors for each of my passports. Not cheap but amazing quality.
https://www.longchamp.com/us/en/products/passport-cover-L3416021121.html
The UK website has [at least some of] them on offer at £49. I’m considering it, particularly since the AF one isn’t in stock.
@PM … If you get the Concorde cover , you will arrive in half the time .
@derek … As I am white , blond , blue eyes , and disabled , I will get an Isreal blue and white passport cover , with a blue and white disability wheelchair sign on the cover .
US CBP has a Regional Carrier Liaison Group. which operates a 24-hour carrier liaison hotline where “air carriers can contact CBP to resolve pre-clearance issues with passengers.” See:
https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2017-Nov/carrier-information-guide-english.pdf
UK offers carriers similar resources: “where you have doubts about the documents presented by the passenger, it is advisable to resolve those doubts before deciding whether to carry the passenger. You can seek advice from a UK Border Force officer at the UK port of arrival, from a UK Immigration Liaison Manager (ILM) if you have one in your region, or from the nearest British Embassy/High Commission”:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63b55d8ed3bf7f29245dd283/Charging_procedures_A_guide_for_Carriers.pdf
I didn’t immediately find documentation for equivalent Spanish/Schengen resources but I’d be shocked if they don’t exist. Shame on Ryanair if they rejected this passenger purely on their own without contacting the relevant liaison.
BTW Ryanair could not have been fined under the UK regulations cited in the article as pertinent. Per the linked document above, “Section 40 charges [penalties on air carriers] do not apply to persons who are British or Irish Citizens”
Yes Spain participates in a similar EU program.
I can guarantee you though that the advice would be DNB (Do Not Board) in this situation. From many years of dealing with these teams, they will never approve a damaged passport on an outbound leg of a journey. The same document would probably be fine for the return journey however.
From my 20+ years of experience managing document security teams, I personally would not have approved this document for travel. Any damage to the biography page is an absolute no-go for me. Others may have different standards – it’s a subjective assessment.
And yes while Section 40 is not applicable to CTA nationals, Section 40 is just the punitive aspect of removals. The carrier is still liable for the actual cost of the removals whether or not a Section 40 charge is levied.