The two conditions British passports must meet to travel in the European Union

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. So rife is the problem that my “pinned post” on X reminds travellers, and airlines that a UK passport must meet two conditions for travel to the European Union : On day of entry to the EU, issued less than 10 years ago. The Foreign Office and Home Office initially insisted that British passports expire after nine years and nine months, a fiction briefly extended to claim that children’s UK passport were no good after four years, nine months. In November, British Airways staff at London Heathrow stopped Laura Savage catching her flight to Oslo, while in December Mark Starkey was turned away from a dawn Ryanair flight from Luton airport to Alicante. Claiming sums beyond that, whether for wasted costs of travel to the airport or for pre-paid accommodation abroad, will be trickier; airlines tend to say they are not liable for “consequential losses”.