Nic Hamilton: I'm past the passport hassle

The rules are clear, your passport must be valid for a minimum of three months to fly on the UK's national carrier. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

A passport snafu almost ruins Nic Hamilton's Swedish holiday.

Always check your passport expiry date before you travel. Why? I'll tell you why.

This summer we chose to visit Sweden to stay with my brother and his family. House on AirBnB booked, flights booked, and all work neatly tied up so we could relax on the archipelago just outside Stockholm.

After manoeuvring our two small children and mountain of baggage from our house in London, into the taxi and out to Heathrow, we popped up to the check-in counter with the exuberance and breeziness of a family happily embarking on a long-anticipated holiday. After handing the passports over, the lovely gentleman at the check in desk looked up at me and said: "You can't fly."

Silence for about four seconds. "Sorry, what?" The lovely gentleman explained: "Your passport expires next month, and the airline can't allow you to fly because we could be fined by the Swedish authorities for allowing you to travel."

"Daddy-eeeeee, let's go!" my eldest tugged at my arm.

"But the Swedish will let me in," I said. "I'm a Kiwi for f***'s sake!"

"You will need to renew your passport and return to the airport then," he said. "Nothing I can do."

There was no arguing - it was all my fault. The rules are clear, your passport must be valid for a minimum of three months in order to fly on British Airways.

My wife had the expression of someone who was visualising her arrival in Stockholm, struggling through the airport, dealing with four bags, two car seats, a buggy and two small children. On her own.

"Daddy-eeeee! Let's go to Sweden!"

The lovely gentleman shrugged his shoulders. "It's just one of those things," he said.

"But I was travelling last week," I protested. "And the week before, and the check-in staff weren't so efficient." ("Officious" is what I wanted to say.)

I'm sure I detected a smirk to his colleague at the next desk.

So the girls jump on the plane, and I sorrowfully travel back into London on the Tube. Renewing your New Zealand passport in London is easy. But it takes up to 10 days. You can pay for a fast-track service, but that can still take up to three days. There is an urgent turnaround service for people who need to travel for serious situations.

I couldn't risk the three days, so instead, hopped on a Eurostar to Brussels - the French border official stamped my passport without even bothering to check the expiry date. I guess they were more concerned about people travelling up the tunnel from the other direction.

From Brussels, I hopped on to another train to Dusseldorf. This is civilised I thought, if only the lovely gentleman at Heathrow could see me now, pushing through borders, armed with probably the least-concerning passport and least-offensive nationality known to humanity. At Dusseldorf, I hopped into a rental and scooted along the autobahn to Copenhagen and from there, just a pleasant five-hour train journey to complete my unplanned overland adventure to Stockholm.

During my journey, I wondered if my marriage would be reparable when I finally showed up in Stockholm, 24 hours later.

"I'll be fine," I thought.

My wife would've experienced the void of not having one of her husband's few redeeming contributions to the marriage left, that of sherpa support at Stockholm airport. It would only bring us closer together.