News story about the US Passport backlogs

I saw this today on Yahoo News and thought it was an interesting read. It contains a few stories from people who have attempted to get their passports expedited and talks about a few of the methods used. I found it interesting because a few people in the story are from AZ.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/travel_passport_in_a_hurry

Some people even got their local state representatives involved to some degree of success.

Friends who visited us in June applied for their passports last November and ended up having to go to the Chicago office two days before their flight in order to get expedited passports...the kicker is that after wasting a day going to/from Chicago and paying the extra fees, their passports arrived in the mail the day of their flight!  The Chicago office was very accomodating.  They started processing people at 6:30am and had the passports ready by early afternoon.

The ones I don't understand are the people who applied with 2 months or less before their trip, knowing that they would need the passport. The new law was announced so long ago! It was already announced when I applied for my passport last June, so people have had a long time to know about it!

I think it's ridiculous about your friends who applied in November though and didn't get it until June. I would have thought that would have been plenty of time!

I think it's ridiculous about your friends who applied in November though and didn't get it until June. I would have thought that would have been plenty of time!

I know, they were told it'd be 20 weeks at most, so they should have had them by April. 

I applied for mine in March (the 13th I believe) and got mine on May 22nd, the exact day the office I applied at said I would have it by. I can't imagine waiting from November to June to get one! That is absolutely ridiculous!

I will say though, even though that law passed and the backlog has been on the news, I know a few people who have said they didn't know about it. My friend mentioned she wanted to visit me while I was in London but needed to get her passport renewed. I told her to just do it now, since who knows how long it could take. She looked clueless until I explained about the new law and the backlog!