Is there a way to obtain a passport in under a week?

Q I am in a state of some desperation and I’m turning to you to see if you can think of a way out. I am a single mother with a 16-year-old son. We have not been able to go on holiday together, for financial reasons, for some years. This year however he has done his school exams early and I was able to book a holiday in Greece for us. We are due to fly on 1 July for a week. To my horror I have realised that his passport expires on 9 August 2024. I am caught by the “three-month rule”. My son does not have enough unexpired time on his passport to enable me to travel to Greece with him for our much-needed holiday. Worse, he is now 16 so must apply for a new adult passport in order to travel. While a renewed adult passport can be obtained in two days, so far as I can see there is a minimum of a week in obtaining a new adult passport. This would take us past the date of our flight and would mean we could not take our holiday. Is there any way to obtain a passport for my son before Sunday 30 June?

Name supplied

A I am so sorry: eight years after the vote to leave the European Union, thousands of British travellers are certain to lose their summer holidays due to inadvertent breaches of the post-Brexit passport rules:

Please apply immediately, online, for a renewal of the passport. Send off the old passport, special delivery, to the address given at the end of the application. Then cross your fingers. Straightforward online renewals are often completed within a week.

Alternatively, the holiday company may be prepared to let you shift the date a week or two later.

If this does not work, then all you can do is pass on the holiday to someone else. Assuming it is a package (flights and accommodation bought in a single transaction) you can transfer it for a payment of £50 or so. In your position, I would be sounding out family and friends in case this becomes necessary.

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Q My daughter’s flight from Greece to Manchester was cancelled on Sunday (23 June). They managed to get on an alternative flight to London Gatwick and then a train back to Manchester. Apart from reimbursement of the train fare, can they claim the statutory £350 in cash compensation? Or anything else?

Graham L

A Your daughter fared much better than most people who were booked to fly to or from Manchester airport on Sunday. A power failure and voltage surge knocked out electronic systems at the airport, causing the cancellation of more than 50 departing flights – and the corresponding inbound legs, such as your daughter’s trip home from Greece.

I am not sure whether it was the swift thinking of the airline, a travel agent or your daughter, but to be transferred onto another flight to the UK was an excellent solution (though if any flights had been available, Birmingham would have been better than distant Gatwick).

Your daughter is entitled to reclaim from the airline the cost of the train ticket, as well as a meal during what I imagine was a journey of four hours or so; the carrier may insist on a receipt. Beyond that, the airline will not be paying any cash compensation.

The closure of a big international airport counts as an “extraordinary circumstance” and therefore airlines are not liable to pay out for cancellations and delays.

She could, in theory, claim for additional losses from Manchester airport under the Consumer Rights Act, if she contends that the operator failed to act with “reasonable care and skill”. But this would only be a possibility if she can demonstrate financial harm as a result of having the plane cancelled. Since her out-of-pocket expenses will be met by the airline, that seems unlikely.

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Q Why do airlines board planes in the slowest way possible? I have currently been queuing for 40 minutes – and the pilot has come out to warn us it’s “super warm” on board as the air-conditioning isn’t working.

Hugh A

A Airlines have experimented with various techniques for boarding flights, including inviting all the passengers with window seats to get on first, then middle seats and finally aisles. It seems to make almost no difference because passengers will do what they want – typically with couples being unable to contemplate spending any time apart. So when only forward doors are used, it’s broadly done from the rear – with priority offered for premium passengers and those with young children.

You don’t say what aircraft it is, but whether it’s a short European hop on a Boeing 737 or an intercontinental voyage aboard an Airbus A380 “SuperJumbo”, I suggest you sit down and join me at the very end of the boarding process.

People behave non-rationally in many aspects of life – but particularly when there’s a plane to board. No major airlines in Europe (as far as I know) still practice “open seating” – which is what easyJet used to do, allowing passengers to choose their own seats. In those olden days, there was certainly a premium to be had in terms of grabbing a seat in an exit row, especially on a long flight such as Luton to Athens. But now everyone has an assigned seat it is in the passenger’s interest to be last on the plane, so you don’t have to sit and sweat.

Yet still people will form a line as soon as there is any indication that boarding might begin soon. Perhaps if more pilots popped out like yours did, passengers might appreciate the benefit of spending as little time as possible on the plane. But I’d bet against it.

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