A TEENAGE boy was banned from boarding his flight because of a sticker on his passport.
Thirteen-year-old Alix Dawson was due to fly to Thailand with his family last month for two weeks.
However, after arriving at Edinburgh Airport, his mum Meghan Law was told that he wouldn’t be allowed to board the flight with his passport at the check in desk.
Meghan, who lives in Aberdeen said: “We got to the airport and were checking in my bags when the [check-in staff member] looked at my passport then just walked away from the desk. She didn’t say anything.
“We were standing there for 20 minutes before I asked what’s going on. She came back and said that my passport was damaged.
“I said I’ve used this umpteen times. No one’s ever mentioned any damage on it before.
“There were no rips or stains, I don’t know what she was trying to imply. I was really shocked.
“What they were trying to say was that the luggage check-in stickers that had been stuck on one of the pages [and] had damaged the page. But it wasn’t even on the photo page.
“There were no rips, it was just where the sticker marks had been. They said we couldn’t travel with it.
“I knew there were no issues with their passports. We’d probably travelled over a dozen times with them.”
She was then told that they would need to go to Glasgow Airport to get a new emergency passport.
Fearing for their £3,000 holiday, she contacted TUI, who they booked the trip with.
After sending photos of the reported ‘damage’, Meghan said the tour operator found no issues with the passport and put them on the next available flight to Thailand which was with Emirates rather than Qatar Airways.
The family were able to head on holiday with no further obstacles, albeit the next day, from a different airport.
Meghan said: “If I hadn’t booked through TUI and booked it myself, we just wouldn’t have been able to go on holiday.
“One way from Glasgow on the same day of travel would’ve been £2,800.
“We used it six times over the two-week holiday and no one said anything which confirms there were no issues with the passports.”
She said that it “ruined the start of the trip” for being so stressful and is calling for compensation.
Other passengers have been banned from their flights due to them being too damaged.
Countries such as Bali and Vietnam have some of the strictest rules in the world when it comes to passport condition, with airlines fined thousands if they let passengers fly with them.
Here are some other passport rules you need to know about.
And here are the world’s strongest passports.