MY PASSPORT IS OLD
Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder
Q Is this true that the old-style passport needs three months’ validity, versus the biometric needing to be valid just on the day of travel? I’m going from the UK to France.
Toby Keen
A I find that a puzzling question. First, regardless of whether a passport is biometric, ie with a chip that includes a digital encryption of data from your photograph, it is valid up to and including the date of expiry in every EU country. Next, because according to my conversations with the Passport Office all current British travel documents should be ePassports. Until earlier this year there were a few in circulation that were old-style, but they should now have expired.
Some holiday companies talk all kinds of nonsense about passport validity, often stipulating you must have
six months remaining even for a trip to Europe. For example, P&O Cruises tells British passport holders: “You will need to have six months validity in your passport after your date of return,” even for next month’s two-night trip aboard Oceana from Southampton to Zeebrugge in Belgium.
As far as I can see, firms do this because it makes life easier for them to cite the most extreme regulations, rather than actually bothering to adapt the information they provide according to circumstances. But cases of British Airways wrongly denying boarding because staff misinterpret the rules are very rare.
Looking ahead, it is possible – though I think unlikely – that EU countries will impose validity restrictions after Brexit. As with so many aspects of leaving the EU, we have no clear idea.
Every day, our travel correspondent, Simon Calder, tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder