A WOMAN has issued a warning to all travellers after she was stopped from boarding her flight due to a tiny passport issue.
Bronte Gossling was attempting to travel from Sydney in Australia to Bali for a holiday, after the country reopened travel.
Having spent AUD$4,000 (£2,200) on flights, all-inclusive hotels and Covid tests, she turned up at the airport to board her Jetstar flight.
However, she was told at the desk that she wouldn’t be getting on her flight – as her passport was too mouldy.
Bronte, who revealed her story on nine.com.au, told radio show 2GB: “I handed over my passport and the clerk at the Jetstar desk said ‘I can’t let you onto the flight’ and he pointed to my photo identification page and there was a bit of mould there.
“He told me that customs in Bali wouldn’t let me through with this photo page being water damaged and I was shocked.”
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New rules for travellers heading to Bali were introduced in 2019, meaning much stricter regulations on the condition of the passport.
Indonesian authorities can enforce fines up to $5,000 (£3,292) on airlines if they bring passengers to the island with damaged passports.
Passengers can also be detained at Bali airport and have to fly back home.
Bronte explained that her passport had become mouldy after she left in her drawer at home for more than two years, due to the continued travel restrictions in place in Australia during the pandemic.
She believed it became mouldy following the floods across Australia which have seen heavy rain and high humidity,
However, while she said she has lost out on her holiday and costs, she was grateful as she admitted that her fate could have been “much worse” if she became stranded in Bali.
She isn’t the first person this has happened to either.
In 2019, Australian football player Sam Kerr was prevented from boarding her Jetstar flight after the airline deemed it was too damaged to fly with – despite having minimal wear and tear.
She shared images of the passport, which showed just small marks on the pages due to standard wear and tear.
Also that year, a man with a nine-year-old passport described as “slightly damaged” was stopped from boarding a Batik Air flight from Perth on Christmas Day.
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And a couple lost £7,500 after their dream holiday was “ruined” because their passport was deemed too damaged for travel.
Richard and Ann Lane, from Lincolnshire, were forced to miss three weeks of their three-month holiday as they were prevented from entering Bali and Malaysia due to a small hole in one of their passports.
