That is my understanding also, problems could arise however with airline check in staff who believe differently!

'Residency pass'?

Don't know what that means but I would not rely on an old green residencia carrying the same weight as a TIE.

Yes I would agree re the old green residencia card, but I am only saying my understanding. I would suggest anyone still relying on the green residencia card should exchange it for a TIE.

My passport renewal has just been approved. I have to admit that I have been very anxious because the photo that I submitted was only rated as "fair" but it was the best that I could do. The site states that it is being printed. Can anyone remember how long it took from approval to receiving it?

Rosemary

I cant remember exactly Rosemary but whole process when I last renewed was very quick.

Don't remember how long that stage took, Rosemary, but when we did ours last December we received our new passports just 11 days after we posted the old ones back to them.

Ours in a similar time frame. Very efficient.
Mind you, seeing how much they charge it should be efficient!

It's one of the few things in life that's actually cheaper now than it used to be! Mind you I think it could be cheaper still if they didn't send your old passport back in a separate delivery (also by courier). No idea why they do that.

Not as cheap as the old Visitor passport! - remember those?

I do, we got them from the Post Office,didn't we? But they were only valid for one year so hardly surprising they were cheaper. I got one for my first ever foreign holiday, when I went to Tenerife with 6 girlfriends and we hardly saw daylight for 2 weeks, out in nightclubs until 7am which we thought was great as the ones at home closed at 2. I couldn't do that for 1 night now let alone 14 consecutive ones, sad.

But we have our memories!

Can't remember exactly, but last time I did it, all was processed and returned quite quickly.

Yes, just a year but so easy to replace - I used them right through the '80s for half a dozen European trips - those were the days!

I think most passports are printed at one central (contract) location so they come from a different place than the old one being sent back.

A Spanish passport costs €26.02, How do the UK justify charging such ludicrous amounts?

Outsourcing?

The new passports are currently manufactured in the EU (Poland) but all personal details are then put on them in the UK ("data protection").

I wouldn't be surprised if the printing/personalisation of each individual passport ends up costing more than the cost of manufacturing the physical (blank) passport itself.