Another COVID Casualty

Hi everyone.  I hope you are looking forward to a wonderful weekend.

Remember last week when I said COVID is directly to blame for lots of complications we are all currently facing?  Well, that goes double for the backlog in the passport application process.

When COVID hit the passport offices shut down.  There were a few months when no, absolutely no passports were processed.  

Then they reopened just in time for the biggest travel surge in the history of travel.  And guess what?  It was just like every other company.  Employees had left their jobs and wouldn’t return.  New employees had to be trained.  It was (and is) a train-wreck.

If you have a passport that needs to be renewed within the next 9 months please send it off for renewal now.  The wait times have sometimes exceeded 5 months this year, and that is not expected to get better any time soon.  In fact it’s currently getting worse.

Passports are currently being processed in order of the date of departure of the passport holder.  So if your trip is coming up fast, your passport will be processed sooner than someone whose trip is six months from now.

But there’s a big IF in that equation, IF they have enough staff to get to it.  I have had more trips canceled this summer due to passports not being received in time than in all 17 years prior to this combined.   Combined.  

Let’s all be very proactive about this and get those passports sent in months in advance of when we plan to travel.  Better safe than sorry, right?

Your Globetrotting Friend,
JOY