A Belfast man has told how he was forced to miss a flight home from Amsterdam due to problems with the online travel locator form.
The man, who does not wish to be named, said he was travelling home from the Netherlands on Saturday after visiting a friend and started to complete his travel locator form on the train to Schiphol Airport.
However while trying to do this he found the website would not accept the reference number for the test he had purchased earlier that day for when he arrived home.
He alleged he tried numerous times to come up with a solution but nobody at the airport was able to help him and there did not appear to be any problems with his reference number as it looked similar to those of other travellers.
Because of this, he was unable to get his flight home to Belfast and in order to make sure he did not face any unwanted repercussions with work, he was forced to pay €270 in order to fly home via Dublin, which proved to be much easier.
He said: “The whole experience has probably put me off going anywhere outside of the UK and Ireland for quite some time.
“I had made sure in the run up to my flight that I had done everything right and had everything in place to get home. All I had to do was fill in the locator form.
“As I was on the train to the airport the website just wouldn’t work for me. At the check-in desk I was having the same issues, it just wouldn’t work.
“The people at the desk were not able to do much, they had their procedures in place and it was not their fault the website wasn’t working.
“The reference number I had for my test wouldn’t register on the website, and there appeared to be no back-up to deal with the issue.
“I ended up having to miss my flight and make a terrible call to my dad asking for a lend of €270 so that I could get a flight home to Dublin later on and not miss work.
“I am lucky that I was able to get that help, or I could still be stuck in Netherlands.”
The UK Government has been made aware that some test providers have not used the correct format when issuing test confirmations for the locator forms.
A Government spokesperson said:“There have been no reported technical issues with the passenger locator form.
“Anyone experiencing problems completing the Passenger Locator Form should contact the helpline for advice.”
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