A couple’s holiday to the Canary Islands was ruined after airport staff misinterpreted a post-Brexit passport rule.

Grant Hardy and his wife were travelling from Guernsey to Tenerife in February when they were stopped by an airport official who said Mr Hardy’s passport was not valid for travel.

The passport, issued in March 2015, expires in October of this year, giving it eight months of validity beyond the couple’s return date.

You can travel until your passport is ten years old (in this case, March 27), as long as it has at least three months left on it when you return.

But a Swissport official applied a reportedly ‘non-existent rule’ and told Mr Hardy that his passport was no longer valid for travel, leaving the couple stranded in Jersey.

The couple had to spend several hundred pounds on flights home and miss their holiday, bringing their total losses up to about £4,000. Their travel insurance did not cover the incident.

Mr Hardy claims the Swissport official called the police when he asked to record their response after showing them Government guidance on his passport’s validity. He says he was calm and polite, with the police officer shaking his hand at the end of their encounter.

A Swissport spokesman said: “Our teams adhere to official travel document guidelines to ensure compliance with the entry restrictions of the destination. We have investigated this incident and the decision to deny boarding was in line with the available guidance on Schengen rules.”

But Mr Hardy told the Mail this is a widespread issue. A taxi driver at the airport told him that other passengers have had similar issues in the last fortnight.

The Wright family faced a similar ordeal at Gatwick Airport when a Norwegian Airlines official also misinterpreted the 10-year passport rule and denied them boarding. In that case, Norwegian Airlines admitted the mistake and apologised.

Travellers are advised to double-check their passport validity and entry requirements for their destination using the official UK government website.