Carol Evans, 65, from Chandlers Ford, was flying business class from Heathrow to Copenhagen to spend the Easter weekend with her husband, who works abroad.
She boarded the British Airways flight without any warning that there might be a problem, but was stopped by immigration officers as soon as she landed and taken away for questioning.
She said: “The police came and took me to a room at the airport. I was kept there for about five hours. Eventually, they moved me to a room at the back of the airport which was like a police cell.”
Carol was told the issue centred on a little-known rule affecting older British passports.
She had renewed her passport in January 2016 and, like many people at the time, was given extra months from her old document, pushing the printed expiry date to October 2026.
However, under current EU and Schengen rules, those added months are effectively ignored, and passports are treated as having expired 10 years after the date of issue – meaning Danish border police considered hers out of date even though it appeared valid for another ten months.
Carol said: “People need to be informed about this, because you could go on holiday and lose everything.
“What annoyed me the most is that three staff at British Airways looked at my passport and they didn’t tell me.”
Carol’s room in Denmark airport (Image: Submitted)
Danish border officials kept Carol in a room until they found a flight back to the UK on the same day.
She said: “It really was a horrible experience; I am sure people thought I had been arrested for drugs or something.”
Carol was escorted onto the plane by police officers, who took her passport and handed it to the captain, along with her boarding pass, which was ripped in half.
To make matters worse, Carol’s luggage was not put on the same plane as her, meaning she had to wait for her husband to return with it the following week.
She added: “The whole experience was awful. It’s obviously something that happens to a lot of people.
“You would think another country would value the expiry on your passport if your own country does.”
British Airways told the Daily Echo it is the passenger’s responsibility to ensure they fully comply with the entry requirements of their destination before travelling.
The airline did issue an apology to Carol; however, the 65-year-old said she has given up on a refund after losing several thousand pounds as a result of the issue.
