Photo Credit: U.S. passport and items representing a planned trip. Skift
The travel industry has owners for issuance, verification, and conversion. The missing layer is readiness, and the traveler owns the failure.
LinkedIn X Facebook Email How are other countries beyond the UK modernizing passport issuance and renewal, and what could the U.S. realistically adopt? What would it cost airlines or OTAs to move Timatic-style checks to the point of booking, and does the conversion loss really outweigh the goodwill and rebooking costs? Which companies are best positioned to build the missing 'readiness' layer, and is there a viable business model for it? Select a question above or ask something else
I should have been flying home from Nevis right about now. My 11-year-old son and I were supposed to spend five days at the Nevis Mango Festival, a leisure trip, just the two of us, the first time ever both of us would have done a dad-son solo trip.
Instead, I am writing this column because the night before departure, during online check-in, I discovered that his U.S. passport had expired 10 days prior to our flight. No warning from the airline, no alert from the booking platform, no flag at any point between purchasing the tickets and trying to use them. The trip was cancelled. The memories we were supposed to make never happened.
Several people I told responded with the same knowing nod. It happened to them too. Once it happens, you never let it happen again. They described it like a rite of passage. But a rite of passage implies the system is working as designed, and that the missed trip is the lesson, that the destruction of plans is how you learn the
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