A WEST FIFE man has warned holidaymakers to make sure their passports are up to date after missing out on his trip to Greece.

Dean Mckenzie, 31, was supposed to fly to the country with his friends and partner last week but was denied his break due to the document not arriving in time.

After applying for a new passport at the end of January, Dean, who lives in Hill of Beath, thought that he would have plenty of time before his April break.

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However, despite waiting times being listed as 10 weeks, he had still not received it by the date of his flight.

"It has been an absolute nightmare," he said, "the biggest stress, the biggest anxiety.

"I was supposed to go away last Tuesday and had applied at the end of January. I've not only completely lost out on my holiday, but all the money too."

On the day he was due to leave, Dean received an update stating that his new passport had been printed and would be with him within four days.

He then booked a new flight for the Saturday to join his group in Greece but was again left behind when it did not arrive.

"If anyone has a holiday booked for the summer months and doesn't have a passport they can forget it," he continued.

Dean received his passport finally on Monday, more than 12 weeks after his initial application.

He has now been forced to watch on from home as his group enjoy the holiday which he was supposed to be a part of.

"They all managed to go and are due back on Wednesday," he added. "It has been heartbreaking, my partner has been out there trying to have a good time, but I should have been there.

"It was meant to be our first proper holiday in a long time.

"Every second day I was phoning, there were huge call queues and sometimes I was on hold for up to 45 minutes.

"Sometimes you would even be on hold and it would cut you off saying they couldn't take your call – you would think they could tell you that from the start."

He called the customer service "appalling", claiming different operators giving him different reasons for the delays.

He said that he was told that, officially, the waiting time was 10 weeks but at the moment they were working on a 12-week turnaround.

"There was nothing I could do," he said, "my hands were tied, they were incredibly unhelpful but to be fair they only have certain systems to work with.

"I only lost a few hundred which could have been worse in the grand scheme of things – there will be families who have spent thousands and could be losing out.

"I got none of the money back, I lost every bit. The travel agents were great but there was nothing to be done.

"It is a lesson learned and I am grateful it is here. The situation will only get worse – we haven't even hit the summer season yet."

A HM Passport Office spokesperson said: "Since April 2021, we have been advising people to allow up to 10 weeks when applying for their British passport as more than five million people delayed applying due to the pandemic. We urge people who need a new passport to apply for one as soon as possible, with the vast majority of all passport applications being dealt with well within 10 weeks.

"To deal with this demand, we have increased staff numbers by 500 since April 2021. This has helped us to handle more applications than ever before, with more than one million passport applications processed in March 2022.

"The passport advice line is being delivered by Teleperformance which is in the process of recruiting additional staff to better service customer queries."