The Denver family were headed to Belize, but were stopped because father Kyle Gosnell's passport did not satisfy airport officials.
'We started at Denver International Airport, where we checked in and all our passports were checked very thoroughly,' said Kyle Gosnell to Fox31.
Mr Gosnell, his wife Dana, and their young son, Kye, received boarding passes all the way through to Belize City.
But in Dallas, they ran into trouble.
'They took a look at our passports and said that my passport was mutilated, therefore I wasn’t able to fly,' said Mr Gosnell to the news channel.
His son's passport was questioned but not denied, because it has a crease on the back cover, which Mr Gosnell says came from him accidentally sitting on the passport.
However, Mr Gosnell’s passport had a small crease on the back cover, and is weathered and worn, failing to pass.
Mr Gosnell has used the passport to travel to Belize before and now the family want there to be a blanket set of rules for what is viewed as acceptable.
'They don’t have the same system of rules for the Denver airport that they do for the Dallas airport,' said Dana Gosnell to Fox31.
Ray Priest, owner of International Passport Visas in Denver, said passports belong to the U.S. government.
'To have a passport is privilege, it’s not entitled to you by citizenship,” Priest said to Fox 31.
He explained the issue may be with a microchip embedded in the back of all new passports.
American Airlines is paying for the family’s hotel as they try to work out their trip.
A spokesperson for the airline didn’t give FOX31 an official statement, but said it is within the airline’s rights to refuse a traveler for a passport that might not be able to be scanned.
The family is going to the passport office today to try and get new documents and continue with their scheduled trip to Belize.
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