UK passport delays force families to cancel half-term trips

theguardian.com:

Families are suffering a nailbiting, up-to-the wire wait this weekend as they face the prospect of having to cancel their half-term holiday plans as ongoing Passport Office delays put trips abroad at risk.

The summer half-term break starts on Monday for much of the UK but a backlog of passport applications has caused months of delays, with some people now set to miss their holiday bookings.

The Passport Office’s most recent advice is to allow 10 weeks to process forms because of a surge in applications after lockdown restrictions were lifted – but many people are still waiting for passports they ordered when the estimated processing period was much shorter.

Thomas Singlehurst, 44, from west London, applied on 8 April for new passports for sons Rex, 15, and Bron, 9, when the estimated processing time was five weeks.

Their half-term trip to France is now in jeopardy.

His younger son’s passport was sent within a month but his eldest son’s was only printed on Friday, with no chance of it arriving for their flight this weekend .

He said the Passport Office had been “impossible to get hold of”. “I would get the train up to Durham to pick it up but it is impossible to contact them,” he said.

“Before, it was 50:50 if you could go on holiday because of Covid tests. Now it’s because you might not have your passport.”

One company director applied for her daughter’s passport renewal on 24 March but now expects to miss the family’s flights to Italy’s Amalfi coast on Monday. The family, from Kent, have already had to abandon plans for the trip over the Easter break because of the passport delay. If they are forced to cancel for a second time, it will leave them, in total, £5,000 out of pocket.

“It beggars belief that they can operate like