Man stranded after pal Czechs in on wrong passport

21 February 2019 08:47

It is not unusual for people to travel on other people's passports

It is not unusual for people to travel on other people's passports

A British man accidentally used the wrong passport to fly from Prague to the UK, leaving his friend stranded in the Czech capital.

Allan Poole, 43, from Whitley Bay, travelled back to Newcastle via Amsterdam on a KLM flight despite using the passport of his friend, Steve Vincent.

The passport was checked or scanned at least four times during the journey, in Prague, Amsterdam Schiphol, and again when Mr Poole arrived back in Newcastle, without any officials noticing the mistake.

Now Mr Vincent, 43, also from Whitley Bay, is stranded in Prague until the British Embassy can provide him with an emergency passport.


A spokesman for the British Embassy in Prague said it was not unusual for people to travel on other people's passports.

"People do travel on (the wrong passport), they don't get checked when they come out and stuff like that," the spokesman said.

"It's quite common actually, to be honest with you, people do travel on other people's passports accidentally, it does happen.

"It even happens in the UK, people come out on perhaps a child's passport that's sometimes not checked, it does happen. Border controls sometimes don't look, I don't know for what reason."



He said: "Hey KLM you let my friend travel from Prague to Newcastle on my passport (after we swapped by mistake).

"You shouldn't have let him on the plane. I'm trapped in Prague. What are you going to do about it?"

Mr Vincent said in a tweet: "We were sober when we accidentally swapped. Just arrived, had to fill out a form with passport details, left both on the table and one of us picked up the wrong one."



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