International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) Is your passport about to expire?

[skiki]

Just saw this thread. We submitted my son's passport for renewal in early May at the post office. No one mentioned that there would be a delay in processing it. I guess we now have to wait and see.

Looking at the state.gov site, they are gradually making progress in catching up on applications. 2 weeks ago there were 1.6 million in the pile, 187k issued. Last week 1.5 mil in the pile, and 236k issued. This week down to 1.4 mil in the pile, and 188k issued. They are getting an average of about 130k new applications in each week. I submitted mine the end of May. I am curious just how far down in the pile mine currently is.[/QUOTE]

 

[raytseng]

Looking at the state.gov site, they are gradually making progress in catching up on applications. 2 weeks ago there were 1.6 million in the pile, 187k issued. Last week 1.5 mil in the pile, and 236k issued. This week down to 1.4 mil in the pile, and 188k issued. They are getting an average of about 130k new applications in each week. I submitted mine the end of May. I am curious just how far down in the pile mine currently is.

yea that table in the stats is pretty cool. They indicate the backlog right now is only a slight increase over normal historical times.

U.S. Passports

How to apply for or renew your U.S. passport if you live in United States

travel.state.gov

If the backlog is 1.43M and they're processing ~200k+/week, then it should be "only" 6-7weeks to make it through the queue which is just about normal (from when the restart happened).

The saving grace is that the incoming apps are way down too because nobody has any place to go or a passport isn't on their mind. The historical stats for last few years says volume was about 20M apps/year. So that means "normal" was 384k per week, Right now with the inbound apps of 133k/week that comes out to be around only 1/3rd of historical. But processing capability right now is at 1/2 to 2/3rd. Way ahead.

So with that processing rate well above the apps; it looks like they are just about "caught up" to historical backlog and should be eating in pretty quickly(as it stands right now).

 

[dovski]

yea that table in the stats is pretty cool. They indicate the backlog right now is only a slight increase over normal historical times.

U.S. Passports

How to apply for or renew your U.S. passport if you live in United States

travel.state.gov

If the backlog is 1.43M and they're processing ~200k+/week, then it should be "only" 6-7weeks to make it through the queue which is just about normal (from when the restart happened).

The saving grace is that the incoming apps are way down too because nobody has any place to go or a passport isn't on their mind. The historical stats for last few years says volume was about 20M apps/year. So that means "normal" was 384k per week, Right now with the inbound apps of 133k/week that comes out to be around only 1/3rd of historical. But processing capability right now is at 1/2 to 2/3rd. Way ahead.

So with that processing rate well above the apps; it looks like they are just about "caught up" to historical backlog and should be eating in pretty quickly(as it stands right now).

We have been waiting over 2 months on our sons passport so hopefully we are not to far back in the backlog and it comes back soon

 

[crgildart]

We have been waiting over 2 months on our sons passport so hopefully we are not to far back in the backlog and it comes back soon

We went to the post office in late December and got ours in mid February.

 

[Henry]

Well, crap. There is now a quasi-emergency for which I need to fly across the country.

You can still fly domestically under the old I.D. rules.

 

[Pequenita]

You can still fly domestically under the old I.D. rules.

Yeah, I actually got my Real ID in December.

 

[Jenny]

@Pequenita - I read an article that said Delta was best at cleaning/distancing/etc., then Southwest, United, and American in dead last. American is what my mom flew in late May, when they were supposedly leaving empty middle seats. They had no empty middle seats - her planes were full.

I flew on the 4 biggest US airlines during the pandemic to see which is handling it best, and found one blew the rest out of the water

I found that, above all, social distancing is a concept that varies depending on which airline you choose to fly on during the pandemic.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[Beach Bum]

I have two passports, both set to expire in the fall, and not sure what to do. Looks like I won't be traveling out of country anytime soon. Are there any options at renewing at this time?

 

[ADKmel]

I thought it was just GE - PreCheck is still available to NY residents.

Nope- I tried to get one.. https://thepointsguy.com/news/dhs-blocks-nys-residents-global-entry/

 

[John Webb]

Submitting our renewals today. We'll see how this goes !
Most likely UK on short notice .