Yahoo Sport 
"My little girl was crying": Family lose £2,000 holiday after dad turned away from plane at Manchester Airport over small passport detail
A mum said her little girl was 'left crying' after they were unable to go on their £2,000 holiday due to a 'near invisible' ink stain on her dad's passport.
Charlotte Estlick, her husband Myk and their six-year-old daughter Nyla were due to jet off from Manchester Airport to Dalaman in Turkey on a package holiday with TUI on May 3. But the Charlotte, from Rochdale, claimed that after arriving at Terminal Two and checking in, Myk was refused travel due to his passport being very lightly marked with blue ink.
The mum-of-one said he had 'worked hard all year' to pay for the holiday, which they had forked out almost £2,500 on with extras. Charlotte said her daughter was left devastated after the family was forced to abandon the holiday when Myk was unable to fly.
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She added that her husband had been using the same passport for eight years with the marking on it with no trouble and claimed he even used it to get into Dalaman last May. The 28-year-old said when they tried to get an emergency passport, the passport office did not have any availability for a few days - which would have meant Myk missing the majority of the trip.
The stay-at-home mum shared her ordeal with the 'petty' TUI staff on Facebook where it was inundated with comments from social media users who claimed they couldn't even see the ink stain. Government guidelines state that a passport can be classed as damaged if details are indecipherable or if there are ink stains on the pages.
Charlotte said: "We got to the airport in plenty of time, we weighed our bags and got our labels on the self check-in part in the airport and then went over to the TUI desk to check our boarding passes and passports. I gave them to the TUI rep and she told me she needed to go and check my husband's passport.
"She then came back and went to check it with someone else. We all stood there and handed the passport over to another woman and she told us they're not going to accept my husband's passport.
"I didn't understand why and I told her we had gone to the same place last year and the year before using the same passport. In the passport you can see all the visa stamps [letting us into Turkey].
"The TUI reps weren't helpful at all. One said to me if we can get the ink off, you'll be able to go.
"I asked her how and she just shrugged her shoulders at me. I knew I needed a deodorant or something with alcohol in it to get it off and I started asking people and looking for somewhere to find something.
"After I tried to get the ink stain off the passport I accidentally put a little rip in the passport and after this I knew they definitely weren't going to accept it. My husband had worked hard all year to go on holiday and I didn't want to go away with just Nyla without him as I wouldn't feel comfortable.
"For me now it's not even about the money or the holiday. It's the way the staff treated us in the airport.
"My little girl was standing there crying in the airport because she couldn't go on holiday. Last year there were no issues with Myk's passport. In Turkey they just stamped it and sent us straight through."
Charlotte said they lost close to £2,500 on what they had spent already on the holiday, with £1,900 on the package holiday, £100 for car parking, and the rest on clothes and insurance for them all. She added: "I just feel like it was very petty.
"Everything was clear on the passport and I was in so much shock about it. Myk's passport is quite old and he has had it since 2016 and is one of the old purple passports.
"I thought the ink stain was just part of the design of the passport. He's been to Thailand with this passport and been everywhere with it.
"If I thought the passport was damaged, I would have ordered a new one. I wouldn't have chanced it, not at the price of holidays these days. Myk was refused travel [because of his passport], so we all decided not to go on the holiday."
Charlotte claimed TUI staff refused Myk's passport as they didn't believe Turkey would let him through border control with the ink marks despite travelling to the same location last year with the same documentation. When she returned home from the airport, she said she visited a TUI store in Bury where she claimed a staff member saw no issue with Myk's passport.
And after making a formal complaint to the airline, she said her case is being investigated by a senior member of staff and TUI have 28 days to respond. Charlotte also posted about the incident on Facebook - which has been shared more than 40 times and received more than 100 comments.
Charlotte said: "If you look in the comments on my post, people are saying they have a dog chewed passport, their passport is ripped and covered in coffee stains and they [TUI] denied a family of three to fly. I could understand if it was a group of drunk people going to Ibiza but we had just rolled out of bed and went to the airport."
Some Facebook users said they were shocked by the family's experience while others couldn't even make out the ink-stain damage on the passport. One user said: "That's shocking.
"Seen people be allowed to travel with a water damaged passport where the writing is affected." Another added: "Where is the ink?"
A third commented: "You are joking! Looks like part of the passport. That's a joke. I hope you get something sorted. I've seen people with ripped passports be able to fly before."
A fourth said: "Wow! I don't even know what I'm looking at here. Seems fine to me. What happens when people get them wet on holiday by accident? I'd definitely be speaking to someone to get your money back."
TUI declined to comment on the specific incident but pointed to Government guidelines, which state that a passport can be classed as damaged if details are indecipherable or if there are ink stains on the pages.
