Travel with Katie Butler: New passport fees from February

Katie Butler writes: From February 2, the fee for a standard online application made from within the UK will rise from £75.50 to £82.50 for adults and from £49 to £53.50 for children. Postal applications are also set to rise and will increase from £85 to £93 for adults and from £58.50 to £64 for children. The new fees include those newly applying or renewing their passport.

The government said the new fees will help the Home Office move towards a system that meets its costs through those who use it, reducing reliance on funding from general taxation.

The government does not make any profit from the cost of passport applications.

It added that increased fees will also contribute to the cost of processing passport applications, consular support overseas, including for lost or stolen passports, and the cost of processing British citizens at UK borders.

Do we expect passport application delays again this year?

According to the government website, since January last year, over 95 per cent of standard applications were processed within 10 weeks. Of course with the new increase in pricing we expect there will be an initial rush of applications to get in before the prices do go up.

Demand for overseas holidays remain high and many passengers may not have been abroad for a number of years and it is possible that passports could already be expired if they have not been looked at for a long time.

In recent months the turnaround has almost certainly been much quicker than the early part of last year. Staff working from home contributed to long delays in the issuance of new passports last year and the massive rush in post-pandemic applications led to a huge back log.

The passport office is expecting applications from at least three million people who did not apply during the pandemic meaning there could be 9.8 million applications this year, this equates to a third more than in a “normal” year so our advice is to apply well in advance, it could well be another busy one.

The cold weather is holding out and caused a few temporary issues at Manchester airport last week. The airport was forced to cancel, delay and re-route several flights due to heavy snowfall on Thursday as it closed its runways for over three hours.

We understand that the airport had 5cm of snow, but as little as 3mm can reduce braking efficiency of aircraft and reduce visibility of runway markings. No more snow please.

Although it has been a cold one it always makes us think about summer holidays and warmer climes, although in store was a little quieter our inbox and social media channels were extremely busy.

June was our most popular month for holiday bookings last week and Tenerife was our best selling destination closely followed by Turkey. January is certainly flying by, how is it almost February!

Katie Butler

Total Travel

9 Northgate, Heckmondwike

01924 402626

https://mytotaltravel.co.uk/