The new passport office for temporary passports was launched at the airport in the Polish capital on Thursday, state news agency PAP reported.
Poland’s Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński told a news conference: “There are situations where citizens are unable to cross the border and travel abroad because their passport has expired or has been lost, forgotten or stolen.”
He added: “This office for temporary passports is designed … to immediately solve such problems. It is linked to all the systems that enable a temporary passport to be issued.”
Kamiński told reporters that “citizens will be able to take a passport photo here and the procedure will take around 15 minutes.”
The interior minister said that the new office for temporary passports was the first facility of its kind in Europe to be located directly at an airport.
The service is also available to those who are awaiting the issuance of a regular passport and to those with damaged passports, news outlets reported.
According to Chopin Airport officials, last year some 370 people were turned away from foreign-bound flights for having a damaged passport, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
To apply for a temporary passport, a traveller must have a valid ticket for a flight from the Warsaw airport, reporters were told.
Temporary passport for EUR 6.50, valid for up to 365 days
A temporary passport costs PLN 30 (EUR 6.5) and can be granted for up to a year, with the exact duration decided on a case-by-case basis, officials said.
The office for temporary passports at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport is open from Monday to Friday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., the IAR news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, pasazer.com
Click on the audio player above to listen to a report by Radio Poland's Piotr Miszczuk.