Ryanair left pensioner ‘feeling like a felony’ over passport challenge | UK | News | EUROtoday

A British pensioner was banned from boarding a flight with Ryanair to journey again to his residence after a tiny mark on his passport made it invalid. David Burton, 70, has lived in Portimo, Portugal for 30 years, however was within the UK for his closest pal’s funeral. However, the grieving expat was blocked from flying residence when the airline mentioned a small tear in his passport meant he was unable to fly.

The father-of-two had deliberate to fly from Exeter to Faro at 5.35pm with Ryanair, but was abruptly stopped on the check-in desk when a member of workers seen the tear. This was attributable to a baggage sticker years in the past, which had torn off the floor paper of David’s official observations web page.

The pensioner insisted that he had travelled throughout Europe for years utilizing the passport, by no means as soon as having a problem with border management previous to the incident at Exeter airport.

The 70-year-old has now admitted to The Sun that he was left feeling “shook up and startled” from the expertise.

After handing the check-in workers his passport, they went away to examine the doc earlier than returning and mentioned “that Ryanair is very strict with documents”.

“He came back with another young man and he said, ‘You won’t be travelling to Portugal today from this airport. You might be able to travel from Bristol or Gatwick’,” Mr Burton defined.

“He was trying to assert himself, so I thought there was no point in arguing.

“Not that they would know, but I’d just laid one of my friends to rest.

“My wife told me to go outside and get some fresh air. I wouldn’t treat anyone the way I was treated.”

The pensioner instructed the newspaper that the workers had been “in search of an issue and a motive to not let [him] fly”.

Following being turned away, Mr Burton was not provided a refund for his flight. Instead, he was set again lots of of kilos as he booked a brand new Jet2 flight from Bristol the subsequent day.

The subsequent day, he went by way of check-in with no challenge, as workers mentioned his passport was legitimate to fly.

A Ryanair spokeswoman instructed The Sun: “This passenger was correctly refused travel on this flight from Exeter to Faro by the gate agent at Exeter Airport as his passport was damaged and therefore not valid for travel.”