 |
|
|
 Travel & Outdoors | April 2007 
Traveler's Aid: Passport Process Hits Crunch
 New York Times
| | Travelers can sign up for a passport at travel.state.gov/passport and check their status online a month after they apply, and after one week for an expedited application. Passengers who have not received their passports 10 business days before departure should call 1-877-487-2778. |
First-time travelers to Europe used to have it easy.
Obtaining an American passport might take four weeks, six at the most, but the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative now means passengers traveling to Barcelona, Spain, and Athens, Greece, must compete with those winging it to Jamaica and Acapulco, Mexico. The result is that getting a new passport can take up to 10 weeks.
As of late January, when the new regulations went into effect, the State Department estimated that 73 percent of Americans did not have passports - a large number when you consider anyone returning by air from Canada, Panama, Mexico and most Caribbean islands now must have one to re-enter the country.
"We are currently seeing a 44 percent increase in passport applications over this time last year," said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services. Her office has increased the number of people answering phones, added 250 specialists and started a facility that will eventually handle 10 million passports a year.
"If Presidents Day weekend and spring break are any indication of what is to come, summer will be a fiasco," said David J. Alwadish, chief executive of It's Easy (www.itseasypassport.com), which offers passport expediting services.
There is an expedited government service, which costs an extra $60 on top of the $97 standard passport fee, provided the application is received at least two weeks before departure. In March, some travelers found it was taking up to four weeks even with the expedited service, a problem the passport agency says it has resolved.
Expediting services' fees are based on processing time. It's Easy charges $75 for eight-11 days and $179 for same-day service. That is on top of the $157 charged by the government for a new adult passport.
Expeditors must go through the passport agency - which gives the companies a certain number of time-guaranteed slots - hence the reason that privately fast-tracked applicants must also pay the higher government fee.
"You might think that the increase in demand for passports would mean expeditors would receive more slots, but that is simply not the case," said Jeffrey Fine, chief executive of CIBT, which also offers expediting services. CIBT is selling out nearly all its slots daily.
Barrett of the passport agency said: "We have to keep the majority of slots available to the general American public." Travelers can sign up for a passport at travel.state.gov/passport and check their status online a month after they apply, and after one week for an expedited application. Passengers who have not received their passports 10 business days before departure should call 1-877-487-2778. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us