The four-year-old boy and his mother went on a week-long holiday in the Alps on easyJet flight 1586 from Southampton to Geneva. Shortly after 6:00 p.m. on December 17, 2023, they cleared Swiss passport control.
Which, according to easyJet, they should not have succeeded. Earlier that day, the airline refused them from a Gatwick-Geneva flight.
Yet easyJet immediately sold them flights for an extra £198 and allowed them to board the plane from Hampshire Airport.
A four-year-old boy, his two siblings and their parents live in Guernsey. They were all booked on the morning easyJet flight from London Gatwick to the Swiss airport and paid just over £150 each.
A few days before the holiday, the parents realized that the four-year-old’s passport would not meet the post-Brexit passport validity requirements required by the UK after leaving the EU.
Fortunately, the Guernsey Passport Office is able to issue children with temporary passports valid throughout Europe for one year. They duly obtained the document and traveled to Gatwick.
The father describes the events at the departure gate at the Sussex airport: “We tried to board an easyJet flight. The gate found that my son has a green covered UK/Guernsey passport valid for one year.
“The gate staff called their office and they refused to let him board. We tried to explain it but to no avail. So my wife had to stay with our four year old who was upset while I traveled with our other two children who were also upset.
“As my wife and son were being escorted from the airport to the mainland, the immigration officer at Gatwick asked what was going on. The gate staff said it was an invalid passport. When the immigration officer checked, he said, ‘No, this is a valid passport’ – at which point the ground staff told him the flight had left anyway and rushed my wife and son away.
Knowing that the document was valid for travel to Switzerland, his wife booked a flight from Southampton to Geneva on the same day with easyJet. The pair traveled without incident. Due to the late arrival, they had to take a taxi for the last part of the journey.
Upon their return, the father claimed compensation for the additional costs as well as compensation for the denial of boarding which was due to them.
The airline’s response echoed the case of Jacqueline McGeough, who was refused permission by easyJet to fly on holiday to Italy. She was told six times by the airline that she was rightly denied boarding – even though a quick scan of her passport and travel details made it clear she was going to travel. Only when The Independent got involved, easyJet accepted its mistake.
In the case of the Guernsey family, easyJet’s customer service department again repeatedly rejected the father’s appeal.
The airline initially said: “After checking the booking, your records show that the passenger on the booking was refused carriage due to insufficient or invalid documentation (passport) required to travel with easyJet.”
When he challenged the decision, he was told: “We received an update from our senior team, investigated and confirmed that the temporary passport is not accepted for travel to Switzerland and was correctly refused. Therefore, under the guidelines of the regulation, we are unable to reimburse your claim for expenses and compensation.”
The father was confused because easyJet itself had proven that his son was perfectly capable of travelling.
His last attempt before contacting The Independent was also denied: “Our review team has re-examined your claim request and investigated all available information that documented that you were denied carriage due to insufficient or invalid documentation (Temporary [sic] passport) which is required to travel with easyJet.”
Once The Independent contacted easyJet, the airline admitted it was wrong to refuse the four-year-old – blaming a third-party documentation system.
A spokesman said: “Like many airlines, easyJet uses an automated verification system called TravelDoc to verify passengers’ travel documents, which uses immigration data collected from various sources, including government agencies.
“Unfortunately on this occasion the system incorrectly informed the ground agent that the passenger could not travel on their flight from London Gatwick to Geneva and the same information was subsequently provided to our customer service team.
“We have reported this to TravelDoc who have rectified this and are in contact with Mr Newark to apologize for his experience, reimburse him for his flights and any travel expenses incurred and provide the compensation they are due.”
It appears that ground staff at Southampton, who knew the passport was valid, did not consult TravelDoc and were therefore unaware of the false information.
EasyJet says TravelDoc has now corrected its mistake.
The mother and four-year-old are each to pay £350 in compensation for being denied boarding and refunds for unused easyJet flights from Gatwick, as well as additional costs caused by the airline’s error.