WASHINGTON – In what appears to be worrisome for US citizens, the State Department has said it is not expecting to slash passport processing times to pre-pandemic levels until the end of the year.
The passport delay is sure to disrupt or cancel the summer travel plans of many Americans who seem frustrated but the department says, it is ‘working hard to get back to pre-pandemic processing times by the end of calendar year 2023’.
In this regard, the State Department spokesperson said they will update the website with the current processing times as they make progress toward this goal.
In March, the department increased the processing time for new passports to 10 to 13 weeks for routine processing. On the other hand, the time was seven to nine weeks for expedited processing, which costs an additional $60. In contrast, the wait time before the pandemic was two to three weeks for expedited cases and six to eight weeks for routine passport applications.
Besides the passport delays, other factors like expensive hotels and rental cars are also contributing to the disruption of travel plans of many as the cost of traveling before the pandemic was significantly lower.
The State Department claims that it is meeting the current promised processing times in “the vast majority of cases”; the department said it has been putting additional resources to cater to future demands.
“We are focused on hiring, training, and retaining staff to address the current surge in demand. We have increased staffing levels and have hundreds of additional staff in the hiring pipeline,” the spokesperson said.
“Our staff is working tens of thousands of hours of overtime a month. In fact, from January through June, we authorized 30,000-40,000 overtime hours each month.”
The severity of the matter can be gauged from the fact that Secretary of State Tony Blinken has addressed the “unprecedented demands” for passports and addressing Congress earlier this year, he said that the department was getting 500,000 applications a week for passports which are 30% to 40% more this year than the previous one.
The State Department spokesperson has said that the department expects an online passport renewal system to be available to the public at the end of the year.
“Once fully launched, we expect five million customers to be eligible to use this platform each year to renew their passports. We estimate this would represent two-thirds of all renewals and roughly 25 percent of all applications received. In time, OPR (online passport renewals) will save Americans time and effort, making it more convenient to renew their passports,” the spokesperson said.
