A mum’s dream holiday was left in tatters as she “fell to the floor” after being told by TUI staff she couldn’t travel due to a tiny rip on her passport.
Claire Page broke down in tears after being told in the queue at Manchester Airport that she wouldn’t be able to fly to Lapland with her family due to the minor damage. The 37-year-old, from Bolton, was due to visit Finland with her husband and two kids.
She claims she has travelled using the document at least half a dozen times and ‘never thought it would be an issue.’ Beautician Claire, from Farnworth, booked the three night festive stay a year ago as a surprise for her husband, car salesman Justin, 39, and two sons Ashton, 11, and Grayson, seven.
The TUI package included a stay at the Snowflake Hotel, a reindeer sleigh ride, a snowmobile ride with huskies and a visit to see Santa.
She told Manchester Evening News: “It was quite simply my dream trip. It’s one you always think about and want to do with your kids in your lifetime. I had been saving for it since Ashton was a baby. My husband always said it was too much but it was something I wanted to do for them all so I paid for it with my own money.”
After telling Justin a few days ago, they told the children on Ashton’s birthday, which was the day before they were due to fly out and say they were “amazed.” But things took a sour turn after they arrived at Manchester Airport in the early hours of Sunday, December 1, ahead of their 6am flight to Ivalo.
As they tried to check-in, surrounded by staff dressed as elves, they were told there was a problem. Claire’s passport had a rip on the photo page, close to the spine. She said she was aware of it and claimed that it happened at a Spanish airport around five or six years ago. Since then, she claims she has travelled six or seven times and that the issue had not once been raised with her by airports in the UK or abroad. On this occasion, however, check-in desk staff began to query it.
She said it was taken away and examined by a second staff member before she was told she couldn’t travel.
She said: “By this point I was crying, my kids were crying. I fell to the floor. Two other ladies from TUI came over and picked me up and took me to the side. The kids just kept asking ‘are we not going?’. Then when we got to the other desk, TUI said ‘there’s nothing we can do, there’s no other flights, we can’t change your holiday’.”
Claire said she had to plead with her husband to take the children through as she made a desperate last attempt to be allowed to travel.
She said: “My husband said he couldn’t do it, as he knew it was my dream. But I told him we had to think of the kids. I said ‘you have to get on that plane, or I will never forgive you.’ We’d only told them the night before so there was no way they weren’t going.”
“If they had let me through, I am certain nothing would have been said as it hasn’t any of the other times,” she added. “The person who flagged it can’t have been a mother, as no mother would do that. They told me I could be turned back or held in immigration and I said that’s fine. I was happy to take the risk. I was having to watch all the other families checking-in and doing what I should have been, it was heartbreaking.”
The UK Government website says that if your passport is damaged it must be replaced and warns you “may not be able to travel with it”. They say the passport office will consider it damaged if ‘holes, cuts or rips in the cover’ or ‘any of the pages are ripped, cut or missing.’
TUI sent a picture of Claire’s passport to Finnish immigration to see if they would accept it, but they said no, the airline says. Claire said: “They said to me, someone has gone to tell your husband, I will show you the way out’. And that was that.”
She was picked up by her mum with the pair rushing over to Liverpool to see if they could get the passport office to immediately issue a new one. “You couldn’t write it, but all the streets were closed because of a Santa dash,” she said. “We had to abandon the car and were literally running across the city.”
With the passport office closed, she booked an appointment on the Monday. However she was told it would take a week to issue, by which time her husband and kids would have already returned. She said whilst her husband and kids enjoyed the activities they often became upset due to their mum not being there with them.
“I will never get this opportunity again, because my oldest goes to high school next year so it will likely be his last year of believing,” Claire said. “So even if we could afford to go again it wouldn’t have that full, magical Christmas feeling. It’s just heartbreaking. I am gutted. It still doesn’t feel real.”
TUI say that their staff ‘tried their best’ to allow Claire to travel, but that after speaking with the Finnish immigration department, the request was turned down. They say their rep stayed with her until she was picked up at the airport.
A spokesperson said: “We were very sorry to hear that Mrs Page was not able to travel with the rest of her family earlier this month. Government regulations do not allow passengers to travel with damaged passports, and after our teams spoke with the relevant authorities her passport was unfortunately denied. We encourage all customers to check their documents are valid and not damaged before they travel.”
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