To think I can't take a baby to Northern Ireland from England without a passport?

I fly all the time between NI, Scotland and England and I do it all on my driving license as my passport is out of date and cannot be used. Including Ryanair. People are a lil confused here.

@Fupoffyagrasshole I was replying to posters insisting you needed a passport

Check the airline for their child policy. But it's domestic. No one needs a passport. You'll only need a driving licence.

Eg BA children don't need any ID but I always check before I travel incase they randomly change for whatever reason. My eldest is 13 and I travel domestically roughly 4 times a year with them and never needed ID

A baby won’t have a national id card either @supersonicginandtonic the poster asked about birth cert

Ryanair do not insist that all passengers have a passport. You can travel with a national ID card.

Op you dont need a passport for a kid to fly between England and Northern Ireland. You will if you fly into Dublin though.

I will be flying from Scotland to Belfast with a 3 month old with easyjet so I have looked into this recently.

Just doublecheck with the airline you are flying with in relation to their policy as I know ryanair in particular tend to sometimes ask for more than is legally required.

I've flown to NI multiple times with my kids when they were younger and definitely didn't need a passport. I can't remember RyanAir specifically but I know for a fact that they definitely can fly at 15 without a passport of their own via Easyjet and on my identification because we did that to a funeral in an emergency and I remember asking EasyJet on their chat about it. And we then got the DC passports straight after because the stress was more than I needed at the time.

The point was about the CTA as aholw actually, with regard to people coming from the UK to Ireland that don't benefit from cta provisions.
But it is also relevant to GB/NI traffic due to the open border between NI and Ireland, and the implications for that (currently extremely important)

Also the airlines have significant legal obligations when it comes to immigration and visas etc, so that's not true at all.

So, Ryanair ON their own website states :

Domestic Flights - photo ID accepted

UK aged 16 or over

ANY photo ID which matches the passengers name in the booking
Aged under 16 and travelling with an adult aged 18 or over
No photo ID is needed.

which I already knew because Inhave flown within the U.K. WITH children numerous times with only a drivers licence for a and nothing for them.

if someone, Spanish, Latvian, Martian is already IN the U.K. then they do NOT need their passport checked as they move from Wales to Scotland to Northern Ireland. So no, Ryan Air do not need to see your passport if you board a flight from Edinburgh to London.
Nor are they immigration. They check ID for identity, not to enquire if you’re legally in a country or not.

It absolutely makes sense to require a passport though
The CTA provides for free unhindered travel for all Irish and British citizens. But not for anyone else..and how do you know which are the British and Irish citizens without a passport?

I've actually been asked for ID on a train as well for a specific type of ticket, but that wasn't in the UK. I thought it was overkill but they did make it clear when I bought the ticket, so I didn't get caught out by it.

Ryanair by contrast likes to catch people out so they can deny boarding and pocket the cash for the ticket.

But they do, people have discussed Ryanair's requirements on MN before.

When I've used BA to fly to Scotland they've asked for ID but not checked it. However, the last time I flew with them on that route was at least 10 years ago and on a recent flight within the CTA from LHR they did ask for ID and check it.

Yes. Also the rules on ferries changed fairly recently - you were able to travel without ID. So for example if we went to Jersey by ferry we didn't need ID but if we flew we did.

Per border control, you don't need a passport for travel between NI and GB, BUT the carriers (airlines/ferries etc) are entitled to ask for whatever ID they like. If that's a passport, then you need a passport. Swim the Irish sea, and your driving license is fine. Ask the carrier you intend travelling with what is needed, then you can prepare. I think 8 weeks will be fine.

They've been doing it for decades, and seem to be quite unfucked so far.

Ryanair - nope - they’d deny boarding. Seen it happen.

i avoid them as much as possible - ghastly airline. They don’t give a fuck.

Wrong.
they’d be fucked if they started demanding passport to fly internal flight, lots of people don’t have passports.

Not in 15 years have I been asked for proof the kids our mine, despite having a different surname and often travelling without the other parent, or for a birth certificate but probably would hurt to carry it.

and if you hadn’t had your passport they would have taken your licence. Or your bus pass!

oh yes they do. I also have to show my passport when flying from Scotland to England with Ryanair.

other airlines are happy with my driving licence.

Flying from England to NI, under 16 Do not need to show identification on domestic flights, but the adult traveling with them must have photographic identification and be able to confirm the child's identity, so a birth cert will do. You can fly with your driving license does not have to be passport. But driving over on the boat you do not need to show anything.

No they don’t! Not for mainland UK to Northern Ireland they don’t because their rules don’t supersede legal requirements!
in fact they’ll accept a student ID or even a buss pass with matching name within the U.K for flights.

Their rules can be whatever they want them to be.

They can't ask for less than the legal requirements, but asking for more they can absolutely do.

Not for mainland UK to Northern Ireland they don’t because their rules don’t supersede legal requirements!

Yes they do, because the documents are required to travel WITH THEM. They have decided that you need a passport or national id card to use their services. You have the choice to use a different airline if you don't want to use a passport, but they can quite legally say that you cant fly with them without following their rules.

From their website:
In order to check-in, you need a valid travel document. When travelling with Ryanair, we generally accept 2 forms of ID.

A valid passport;
A valid National Identity Card.

We do not accept a driver's license or birth cert for travel to any location. It is each passenger’s responsibility to carry Photo ID which meets our requirements and the requirements of the relevant Immigration Authority.

Note the OUR REQUIREMENTS in that paragraph.

You won’t need a passport but always best to organise one and bring it if you can.

I learned that last year when I was on a domestic flight affected by weather. One of the options the pilot mentioned when we were already on the plane was diverting the flight to Paris. Cue my horror because I didn’t bring my passport on the trip! Thankfully it didn’t happen, but I think there were a few planes that night which landed in mainland Europe after what was supposed to be a domestic flight.

I can’t imagine how fed up I’d be if the culmination of an evening of hassle and delays that lasted into the middle of the night was being told I needed to sleep in the airport with a tiny baby until a return flight could be scheduled because the authorities wouldn’t allow us entry into the country we’d landed in.