Hanbury left furious over flight fiasco at Stansted
WITH her son a page of honour at the King’s Coronation and her husband a lord- in- waiting to His Majesty, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley is used to palace doors being swung open for her.
Yet I hear that the former model’s father, Tim Hanbury, has suffered the indignity of having gates closed to him at the airport.
The web designer, 70, is said to have tried to board a Ryanair flight at Stansted Airport in Essex at the weekend, in order to spend a few days at a friend’s home abroad. But staff at the low-cost airline’s checkin desk refused to let him board, even though his passport did not expire for another nine months.
‘ Tim was very upset and frustrated,’ one of his friends tells me. ‘He was fuming because he could not have the weekend away that he was looking forward to.’
What Hanbury appears not to have known is that, since Brexit, British passports cannot be more than ten years old when used to travel to the European Union — which means travellers need to look at the date the passport was issued, rather than the date it expires.
Perhaps he should have seen if his daughter Rose, 39, and her husband, the Marquess of Cholmondeley, aka film-maker David Rocksavage, 62, were able to use their connections to help out.
The couple are key figures in the royal court, with the Marquess first serving as Lord Great Chamberlain under Queen Elizabeth. Lord Oliver, one of his 13-year- old twin sons with Rose, helped carry the King’s train at Westminster Abbey.
Hanbury declines to shed any more details on the incident, telling me: ‘Sorry, I am incredibly busy, so I won’t be able to comment.’
It was unlike Hanbury not to use an alternative form of transport. He is said to have once commandeered a bus crammed with Japanese tourists which was parked near Annabel’s club in Mayfair. Hanbury insists that this tale is ‘vastly exaggerated’.
A Ryanair spokesman says: ‘ As this passenger’s passport was issued in May 2013, it does not meet the first entry requirement under EU legislation.’