A man who finally beat his 15-year phobia of air travel was barred from boarding a celebratory flight, because his passport was bent at the edge.
Greg Howe, 37, underwent hours of therapy sessions and was prescribed anti-anxiety drugs before deciding to fly to last week’s Monaco Grand Prix, reports the Mirror.
But he was turned away at the airport because the laminate cover on his passport had started to peel away at the corner.
Greg, from Bournemouth, pleaded with staff from Flybe at Southampton Airport to let him on the flight to Nice, but they refused.
“I couldn’t believe that after everything I had been through I wasn’t allowed on the plane because my passport was frayed at the corner. The staff said that I could have tampered with it,” the Mirror quoted him as saying.
“I begged them to let me on but they wouldn’t budge,” he added.
Flybe said that Howe’s “passport had been clearly mutilated with the corner cut off as it would be had it been cancelled”, adding it had “no choice but to refuse Greg permission to board the plane after consulting border agencies in the UK and France”.