A father has claimed his family were forced to go on their £4,000 holiday without him after airline staff ‘tore his passport’ then said it was ‘too damaged’ to travel.
Jimmy Gould, 48, was ‘excited’ to fly with his girlfriend Zowie Buckley, 35, his three kids and extended family to Lanzarote, Spain, for seven nights from East Midlands airport on Monday 28 July.
However he said check-in staff would not let him through as his passport was ‘damaged’.
A sticker from a previous flight was ripped off by a member of boarding staff, he claims, causing the 10mm tear on the data page.
Staff told Jimmy the document was too ‘damaged’ so he couldn’t board, meaning the father-of-three was forced to leave his ‘crying’ kids and girlfriend to jet off without him.
A photo shows a small white tear covering part of Jimmy’s face in his passport duplicate photo from where the boarding sticker was removed.
TUI confirmed passports with stickers on wouldn’t be allowed to travel but claimed their agents at East Midlands are trained not to remove any stickers off passports themselves.
Jimmy, who lives in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, said: ‘It’s a total nightmare and I’m absolutely fuming.
‘I’m sitting home alone while they’re in Lanzarote gutted, and they all want to come home because of the situation.
‘One year [passport officials] put a sticker on the duplicate photo page. I’ve been away for six or seven years with no problem at all.
‘I got to the airport and passed all the passports over and [a staff member] pulled the sticker straight off and she ripped the page. It’s a tiny little tear.
‘She literally ripped my passport in front of us all and said ‘you can’t go’. I can’t believe she just sat there and ripped my passport instead of giving me the option to tear it off properly so she wouldn’t have marked it.
‘She looked at me and said ‘this one’s damaged and you can’t use this passport now’.
‘It’s a tiny mark and the other page is fine. My kids started crying once they realised their dad couldn’t go. They want their dad there. It’s just terrible and I’m absolutely devastated.
‘I was so excited to make memories with my family this summer. My daughter is seven and I should be playing in the pool with her but instead I’m stuck at home on my own. They’re miserable wanting their dad there. We have one holiday a year and you get excited.’
After unsuccessfully trying to apply for an emergency passport the dad is now stuck at home and forced to miss out on the trip.
Girlfriend Zowie admitted her holiday has been ‘ruined’ without having her partner there.
Zowie said: ‘The holiday has been ruined. The experience has been awful as we never go anywhere unless we’re together.
‘I’m anxious and worried about being in a foreign country on my own with three children and it has totally changed the atmosphere.
‘All that money wasted and all the months saving to go away together to end up apart.’
Last year, another family were prevented from flying after a man was stopped from boarding the plane due to a ‘near invisible’ ink stain on his passport.
Charlotte Estlick had hoped to jet off from Manchester Airport for a package holiday to Dalaman in Turkey with her husband Myk, 28, and their six-year-old daughter Nyla.
But after arriving at Terminal 2 to check-in on May 3, the mother-of-one claims her partner was refused travel due to his passport being lightly marked with blue ink after appearing to have got wet.
Mr Estlick was told he could not fly despite having used the same passport for eight years with the marking on it with no trouble.
She says the family was left with no choice but to abandon their holiday for which they had already paid £2,500.
Government guidelines state a passport can be classed as damaged if details are indecipherable or if there are stains on the pages.
