** ALL ** Passport Queries take.two. **! Mod-note in post#1288

Turns out the new status means nothing. Still awaiting to be assigned a checker.

First time applications are a complete and utter farce. 60 working days and counting…

If your only applying for a card and not a passport, I’d say you’d get it in a few days, but if applying for the 2 together, hard to say.

Same situation here. Don't know why they bother on having a website with "current turnaround times" if it's a completely lie. It's just frustrating for everyone counting on that.

Exact same situation with my child's first passport. Was estimated 4th November

It's been 4 months since I applied for first time child passport. Estimated issue date was September 29th. I have a flight on Wednesday which was already rescheduled and it seems I won't be able to travel again and I have another flight to spend Christmas with family in 3 weeks. Contacting customer service is useless since they just tell me the same I see on the tracker and that I might or I might not have the passport on time for my holidays. 2 weeks ago I contacted some TDs and submitted an urgent passport application but also didn't seem to work.

Nobody has contacted me regarding the application, so either they haven't started to check or they're just taking ages.

It's just so frustrating!

Any updates? Have you now received the passport?

I have a good news story for anyone waiting on a first time passport.

The passport office received our online application on 05/10/21 for baby.

Estimated Delivery date was 15/12.

We are due to fly out on 10/12 so I was stressing big time, even more so after reading this thread.

Nothing was happening. I had contacted the Webchat a few times to inform them of our dates.

Still wasn't getting anywhere, then on Wednesday, I contacted a few TDs. High profile ones never got back to me at all but two lesser known TDs got back to me and said they would help. One rang me back 10 minutes after I sent him an email. Very impressed with him.

I contacted the Webchat again on Friday (yesterday). Requested my own passport back if they had finished with it and reminded them of my dates. That afternoon, I received an email from them looking for baby's PPS, I immediately responded with PPS. At the same time, the witness was contacted to verify signatures.

Now I see on the tracker the passport is printed and posted!

So we should received the passport 29th or 30th Nov. That's a good 15 days quicker than the tracker for a first time passport!

Not sure which TD helped, probably both. I'll sing their praises for ever more.

On the afternoon of Saturday 27th November I applied online to renew a passport that expired a few months ago, and also for a passport card for another person whose passport book is still valid.

The book for the expired passport arrived by post on Tuesday 30th November and the matching passport card the following day. Very impressive!

Weirdly the other application for just a passport card has not progressed beyond "application received" and it has an estimated date of 10th December.

Did you get your passports last week?

You seem to be one of the very lucky few. Mine is a very similar story to yours (first baby application), except my application was maybe 1-2 weeks ahead of yours and I don't have any positive news to report (yet).

Estimated Passport Delivery Date: 10/12

Due to fly out: 10/12 (This coming Friday early morning)

Both are on the same day so I knew I always needed a bit of a miracle. I'm not holding out much hope at this stage. Up until last week my documents hadn't even been scanned (only received this information when I requested my original passports be returned, response was: "have not been scanned so this request will cancel your application, do you want to proceed...").

I have had a TD on the case for the last couple of weeks. They did advise me from the off that they have had little/no joy with expediting first time applications. It is only when it goes past its estimated due date that their calls seem to have any impact.

I have been on webchat myself multiple times requesting: updates, my original passports back and reminding them of my travel dates.

The generic responses received have been: "Application progressing as normal", no problem, can return original copies if you want to cancel your application" and "we cant do anything with this application until the estimated issue date has passed".

My passport card arrived today. So in summary:

Saturday 27/11 application for passport book+card for a recently expired passport - arrived Tue 30/11 and Wed 1/12.

Saturday 27/11 application for passport card for still valid passport book - arrived Wed 8/12.

Both applications had estimated dates of 10/12.