{"id":411687,"date":"2026-02-06T20:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/411687\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T20:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:06:08","slug":"aer-lingus-passengers-flying-from-ireland-to-uk-require-passport-under-rule-change-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/411687\/","title":{"rendered":"Aer Lingus passengers flying from Ireland to UK require passport under rule change \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aer Lingus<\/a> passengers travelling from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom<\/a> will have to carry a passport under tighter regulations being introduced this month.<\/p>\n

It means documents such driving licences or Garda age cards will no longer be accepted for boarding.<\/p>\n

From February 25th, all Irish nationals must have a passport to travel to the UK on Aer Lingus flights despite the long-standing Common Travel Area<\/a> (CTA) arrangement, the airline said.<\/p>\n

In addition, all non-Irish nationals travelling to Britain must obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) in advance at a cost of \u00a316 (\u20ac18) per person. <\/p>\n

The ETA for non-Irish nationals travelling from Ireland to Britain is required by the British government, which has been rolling out the system to different countries over the last few years. <\/p>\n

The passport requirement for Irish nationals has been introduced by Aer Lingus, which up to now has accepted other forms of identification such as a driving licence. <\/p>\n

Ryanair has imposed the passport requirement for many years, however, arguing the CTA is based on a memorandum of understanding between Ireland and Britain rather than legislation.<\/p>\n

Aer Lingus said the new measures \u201cwill ensure consistency across our network and further improve our operational performance for our customers\u201d. <\/p>\n

Passengers on domestic routes such as Belfast to Britain and Dublin to Donegal will be exempt. <\/p>\n

The airline has set up dedicated phone lines for passengers who do not have a passport but need to fly to Britain \u2013 or who are in Britain but need to return to Ireland \u2013 before they can obtain a passport. <\/p>\n

But it said: \u201cIf you cannot present a passport\/Irish passport card, you won\u2019t be able to travel. Aer Lingus cannot make exceptions to travel document requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cAer Lingus customer care team will offer customers the best option to suit their individual circumstances, including a refund, a refund voucher or a rebooking to travel at a later date.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aer Lingus passengers travelling from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom will have to carry a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21507,152664,59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-411687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-aer-lingus","9":"tag-common-travel-area","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-greatbritain","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}