Man gets to the airport for snowboarding trip. Then he takes a closer look at his passport. What can he do?: ‘How do people manage this?’
It’s pretty easy to forget something major when preparing for a big trip.
We’ve all had the experience of landing at your destination, driving to your hotel, then checking in, only to realize you’ve forgotten your phone charger, medication, or some other critical item. No matter how well you think you’ve prepared for travel, there’s always a strong possibility that your first day at your destination will involve at least one trip to the store to replace something you left at home.
Some of these mistakes are worse than others, as a user on TikTok recently discovered.
What Went Wrong With This Ski Trip?
In a video with over 4.9 million views, TikTok user Nathan Chapman (@nchapman15) shows his friend at the airport. The friend has his head in his hands and appears to be frantically searching for something on his phone.
“Plane in 2hrs, bros passport is out of date,” Chapman writes in the video’s overlay text. The video appears to have been taken at London’s Stansted Airport.
In a follow-up video, Chapman shows that the man in question has made it to his destination—Bansko, Bulgaria. But how?
What Can You Do If Your Passport Is Expired?
There are a few things that could have happened here.
The first and simplest explanation is that the airport simply overlooked the fact that the passport had expired. While this is uncommon, it’s not impossible—there are numerous internet posts from people who claim they were able to travel with an expired passport.
The second option is that this video does not tell the whole story. In the United Kingdom, one can pay to get a passport fast-tracked in a single day. It’s possible that this person paid to do that, then simply joined the group later.
Another possibility is that the person had citizenship of another European Union country. If this is the case, they would likely be able to travel using solely their ID card thanks to the Schengen Agreement.
For his part, Chapman never clarified how his friend was able to travel to Bulgaria with an expired passport.
Is It The Same For American Passports?
In the United States, things work a bit differently.
Most American travelers aren’t leaving the country. Consequently, they don’t need a passport to travel. The TSA has a long list of acceptable forms of ID on its website. This includes everything from Real-ID-compliant driver’s licenses to the new Apple Digital ID. If you forget these forms of identification, you can also just pay $45 to use TSA ConfirmID. This will confirm your identity without the use of one of the aforementioned forms of identification.
However, if Americans do plan to leave the country, their passport needs to be in-date. Often, they need to have more than 6 months of validity in their passport before they can even check in to their flight.
That said, if they somehow manage to arrive on the day of their flight with an expired passport, they will likely need to cancel the trip—or, at the very least, significantly delay it.
While the United States used to offer walk-in same-day passport services to the public at a fee, Americans must now book an appointment and provide evidence of travel within the next two weeks in order to receive such services. Even then, one is not guaranteed to receive their passport within that timeframe.
The TSA website states that, for routine passport replacement, one should expect to wait between 4 and 6 weeks. Expedited processes will take between 2 and 3 weeks, and urgent processing varies considerably. Even then, the TSA states that receiving one’s passport in the mail can take an additional two weeks.
Commenters Are Perplexed By The Passport Problem
In the comments section, users questioned how such a mistake could have been made in the first place.
“You literally have to enter the dates when you check in online,” said a user.
“How do people not check this stuff 100 times before booking the holiday?” asked another.
Some offered other solutions.
“This happened to us, we found an office in the airport where we paid for a temporary passport that lasted like 4 months,” stated a commenter. “Just a friendly reminder this is possible, at least in some counties in Europe.”
@nchapman15 @Williams_1233 #holiday #snowboard #ski #bulgaria #airport ♬ Drinkin' Problem – Midland
The Mary Sue reached out to Chapman via TikTok comment.
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