| Show Passport office way behind schedule E. E Peter Morrison Contributing Writer You could be canceling that international vacation you had planned this summer A new law went into effect at the beginning of the year requiring those planning on visiting any international location to obtain a passport A vacation to Canada or Mexico t i i c i 1 j I r t tt t previously only required a birth certificate but with the new law travelers now need a passport As a result the passport office has been flooded with orders for passports and is requiring more time timeto to process them This will force those who do not plan accordingly to have to cancel their international vacations office The passport t is thousands behind schedule said Fred Belch an employee of the United States Postal Service who works in its passport department I have a constant line of people out my door every day to get gett passports t s. s Belch also said that the passport office has informed him that the time customers can normally expect to receive their passports has tm increased It normally takes sixto six sixto sixto to eight weeks to get your passport and they're saying now its it's going to take over nine Belch said Customers also have the option of expediting their passport which for an added fee will get it to them more quickly However Passport Continued on page 8 4 r fJ r m i Passport delay Continued from page 1 according to Belch customers also need to plan for extra time to receive it as well Normally if you expedite a passport you can get gett it t in two weeks or a littlemore little littlemore littlemore more but they're telling us now that it will even take four to six he said Rachel Foster a Salt Lake City resident who is planning a trip to Mexico in May said that the current passport problem almost caused her to cancel her trip V We Ve ended up having to get our passports expedited to even get them in time she said Luckily we went to get them early because we were originally just planning on getting them the normal way They told us we wouldn't get them in time that way though and we had to spend the extra money Bill Ganson another Postal Service employee who deals with passport customers added Nobody wants to make all their flight and hotel arrangements and then have to cancel l because they didn't get their passports in time Ganson also said to get geta a passport through the Postal Service costs normally but to expedite it customers will spend a little over The sooner people get in into into into to get them the better he said Because no passport no trip |
