Mum not allowed on TUI flight had to pay another £634 to get to Spain

16.08.2022 - 14:43 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk

A mum says she was 'gutted' for her little boy after they were not able to fly to Spain due to her passport being issued more than ten years ago. Shirelle Quinn and her son Freddy, from South Tyneside, were due to fly to Alicante in Spain from Newcastle Airport on Saturday morning (August 13).

However, when they arrived at the airport check-in staff at TUI told the pair that they wouldn't be able to fly due to a travel rule that has come in as a result of Brexit. Spain is one of the 26 countries which make up the Schengen Area of free movement, which requires that passports must be issued within the previous 10 years upon the date of arrival into the EU and must be valid for at least three months from the return date of travel from the EU - which only came to force when the UK left the bloc and became a third country.

Because Shirelle's passport was issued on August 9 2012, she was turned away as TUI staff could not guarantee she would be permitted entry into Spain when she arrived. Shirelle had used a third-party online passport checker which said that her passport was valid for travel, but it turned out this was not the case.

Read more: New date set as Spain, France, Portugal and Greece to charge UK tourists to enter

This rule meant that the holiday she had forked out £2k for had been lost - or so she thought when leaving the airport. Shirelle said: "I was just gutted for my little boy. He was in tears, but I was quite calm.

She continued: "It wasn't the staff's fault, it was my own. They couldn't let me fly because I might have been refused entry when I arrived in Spain." However, the quick thinking mum, who works as a buyer for Purely Drink in Sunderland, jumped straight in her car and headed for the passport office