B.C. family unable to return from Iran due to expired passport

A family in the Okanagan was looking forward to reuniting with their relatives across the globe, as they travelled to Iran in early March.

However, over a month later, the trip has not yet ended, as the family is unable to leave the country due to an expired passport.

Roham Pahlavan hasn’t seen his wife and kids in over a month and isn’t sure when he will see them next.

“I just want my family back home. I have many gifts on my children’s beds and we’re just waiting for them to come celebrate easter,” said Pahlavan.

His wife, Shima, travelled to Iran with their children Annie and Artin to visit her mother, as the kids hadn’t yet gotten the chance to meet their grandmother.

However, the family overlooked a key detail when they were flying out of Kelowna — their seven-year-old daughter’s passport was expired.

“Upon trying to leave Iran three weeks later, they encountered a Lufthansa employee that right away noticed the passport doesn’t match my daughter’s and it was expired by a year. The passport photo is six years old and shows my daughter as an infant,” said Pahlavan.

This put the brakes on the family’s flight home, unable to leave the country without a valid passport for their daughter.

Pahlavan has been dealing with many moving parts trying to get the documents.

“It was really scary to hear that my wife is trapped in Iran. I spent hours on the phone trying to find a solution. I didn’t even know where to start as there’s no embassy in Iran,” he said.

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He has been in contact with the Canadian embassy in Turkey trying to get an emergency passport expedited, but hasn’t yet had any luck.

A travel expert says cases like these serve as key reminders to double-check expiry dates and documents.

“Your trip could end before it even starts. You may run into a situation where it expires when you’re gone and it could cost you a lot of money because of the additional expenses for changing a flight, for extra accommodation nights and all of the other expenses that go with staying beyond just your regular ticket that you had booked,” said travel expert Claire Newell.

Newell says some countries also require the passport to be valid for a certain amount of time, including three to nine months. She recommends passengers read up on a country’s requirements before they go visit.

“You may need a visa to go to a certain country, you may need additional documentation like an ETA, otherwise known as an electronic travel authorization. People from certain places around it need it to come to Canada and now Canadians need it to go to a lot of places,” said Newell.

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Pahlavan says his family does take responsibility and recommends travellers do their part by checking their documents.

However, he does wonders how the error made it through many Canadian airline employees.

“Allowing a Canadian citizen to leave the country, to a country like Iran where the political environment sometimes isn’t very stable seems a huge oversight,” said Pahlavan.

Pahlavan has spent nearly $15,000 trying to get them home. They have booked a flight for the end of the week, hoping a replacement passport will get to them in time.