Airport airport staff in Britain and Spain allowed a bald man to travel using his blonde girlfriend’s passport.
Barber Neil Clulow, 5o, is a bald man with a bit of a goatee.
His girlfriend is a lady with long blonde hair – and no goatee.
Departure from Birmingham (BHX)
Mr Clulow flew from Birmingham for a three-night lads’ trip to Benidorm to celebrate pal Carl Fentham’s 50th birthday last month.
He had hand luggage only and went airside by showing only his boarding pass.
It is not known if the boarding pass check was by a person or self-service kiosk.
Grandad-of-five Neil showed his passport to Monarch Airlines’ handling agents, Servisair, on boarding. No problem.
Arrival at Alicante (ALC)
On arrival in Alicante (ALC) he went through border control with no problem.
Alicante does have ABC egates for arriving passengers.
Again it is not clear if he used a self-service kiosk or went to a person.
The result
Mr Clulow only realised the error only when he and his pals were comparing passport pictures.
After spotting the mistake, he paid £70 for UPS to post his passport to Spain – only for them to accidentally send it to Berlin.
The bungle meant he missed his flight home on March 19 but Monarch bosses agreed to let him fly back for free the next day.
What the airlines / airport say
Birmingham airport explained that when a passenger has only hand luggage, they only have to present their boarding pass to pass through to the departure lounge, where it is then the airline’s responsibility to check that a passenger has the correct passport.
While Mr Clulow was flying with Monarch Airlines, a spokesman for the company said that the members of staff who let him on to the plane were working for a contractor.
‘Monarch Airlines can confirm that Mr Clulow was able to board a flight from Birmingham to Alicante on 16th March 2014 with an incorrect passport,’ Monarch said in a statement.
‘Monarch use ground handling agents at all our UK bases to manage check in, boarding and other non-flight related tasks. At the time of this incident, the agents in place at Birmingham Airport were Servisair.
‘We have had confirmation from Servisair that they are carrying out an investigation into this incident.’
