A four-year-old and his mother took easyJet flight 1586 from Southampton to Geneva for a week’s holiday in the Alps. Shortly after 18:00 on December 17, 2023, they cleared Swiss passport control.
Which, according to easyJet, they shouldn’t have been able to do. Earlier that day, the airline had kicked them off a Gatwick-Geneva flight.
However easyJet immediately sold them flights for a further £198 and allowed them on the plane from Hampshire airport.
The four-year-old, his two siblings and their parents live in Guernsey. They were all booked onto easyJet’s morning flight from London Gatwick to the Swiss airport, paying just over £150 each.
Days before their holiday, the parents had 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, Guernsey’s passport office is able to issue temporary passports for children that are valid throughout Europe for one year. They duly received the document and traveled to Gatwick.
The father describes the events at the departure gate at Sussex Airport: “We tried to board the easyJet flight. The gate found that my son had a green covered UK/Guernsey passport valid for one year.
“The gate staff called their office and the office refused him boarding. We tried to explain, but to no avail. So my wife had to stay with our four-year-old, who was restless, while I traveled with our other two children, who were also restless.
“When my wife and son were escorted from the airside to the ground, a Gatwick immigration officer 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 the document was valid for travel to Switzerland, his wife booked a same-day flight with easyJet from Southampton to Geneva. The couple traveled without incident. Due to their late arrival, they had to take a taxi for the last leg of their journey.
After their return, the father sought compensation for the additional expenses, as well as compensation for the denial of the boarding that they needed.
The response from the airline mirrored the case of Jacqueline McGeough, who easyJet refused to allow a holiday flight to Italy. The airline told her six times she was rightly denied boarding – even though a review of her passport and travel dates would reveal she was clear to travel. Only when The Independent involved, easyJet admitted its mistake.
In the case of the family from Guernsey, easyJet’s customer service department repeatedly rejected the father’s appeals.
The airline initially said: “After checking the booking, your details show that the passenger on the booking was refused carriage due to insufficient or invalid documentation (passport) required to travel with easyJet.”
When he contested that decision, he was told: “We have received an update from our senior team, they have investigated and confirmed that a temporary passport is not accepted for travel to Switzerland and was correctly refused. Therefore, under the guidance of the regulation, we are unable to reimburse your claim for expenses and compensation.”
The father was confused because easyJet itself had indicated that his son was capable of traveling a lot.
His last effort before contacting The Independent also countered: “Our evaluation team has once again reviewed your claim request and investigated all available information documenting that you were denied transportation due to insufficient or invalid documentation (Temperator [sic] passport) which is required to travel with easyJet.”
One time The Independent contacted easyJet, the airline admitted it was wrong to remove 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 validate 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 was unable to travel on their flight from London Gatwick to Geneva and the same information was then passed on to our customer service team.
“We have raised this with TravelDoc who have corrected this and we are in contact with Mr.
It appears that the ground staff at Southampton, knowing the passport was valid, did not consult TravelDoc and were therefore unaware of the false information.
EasyJet says TravelDoc has now corrected its error.
The mother and four-year-old must pay £350 each in denied boarding compensation and refunds for unused easyJet flights from Gatwick, as well as additional costs caused by the airline’s error.