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First pass for Easter next year

All hours for passports and national ID cards at the police station in Greenland in Oslo have been booked for the next six months, Jan Eirik Thomassen in the Oslo police district informs Dagbladet.

He is the leader of the Joint Unit for Foreigners and Administration, which manages the organization of the passport queues.

If you have not already received an appointment in Oslo or come across a canceled appointment, this means that you can receive an appointment no earlier than 1 December.

With a ten-week estimated delivery time after that, you can get the new passport no earlier than mid-February. In that case, it will be by Easter 2023. Palm Sunday next year is April 2.

– Check with the neighbor

At the same time, the Oslo Police District reminds that it may be a good idea to check whether there are free hours in the neighboring districts, such as with the police in the East and South-East.

Here are the forms for ordering passport and ID card hours.

– The queue and appointment booking system means that the public can book an appointment a maximum of six months in advance from today’s date. We need some time to plan the autumn and winter as best as possible in terms of capacity and demand, Thomassen writes in an email to Dagbladet.

From August until the autumn, the Oslo police have so far reached what he describes as “a core of hours”.

This means that only hours have been posted for some, preferably the majority of counters that are planned.

He also writes that the police are looking at measures and solutions that can improve the situation for employees and the public.

Crisis meeting directly

Before the weekend, the employees at the passport office in Oslo sent a warning to the chief safety representative in the police district about unsustainable working conditions.

As early as Monday, the chief of police, the deputy chief of police, the occupational health service and HSE managers had a meeting about the situation as soon as the warning was known.

Jan Eirik Thomassen is familiar with the meeting.

– We have a large influx of people who will collect passports, also from other police districts. It is a demanding situation for both the public and our employees, writes the leader of the Joint Unit for Foreigners and Administration.

Passkø: Hundreds of thousands of Norwegians lack a valid passport. It’s starting to rush if you’re going abroad this summer at all. Video: Øystein Andersen / Lars Eivind Bones
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New challenges

The tightening from now Monday in issuing emergency passports, creates new challenges for the employees. Among other things, there is an end to issuing emergency passports for pure holiday travel, weddings and confirmations.

Here are the new emergency pass rules.

– It is demanding for the employees, and we emphasize training and handling, writes Thomassen.

He does not yet have a concrete answer on how the situation will be handled beyond the autumn in terms of staffing.

End of pick-up queue

One queue problem has been cleared by the passport officers in the last couple of weeks.

When Dagbladet was in the passport area at the police station on 19 May, it was crowded with people who had an appointment that day for either an appointment or to collect a passport.

QUEUE IN PASSPORT CHECK: Travelers across Europe report hour-long passport queues at airports - here at Stansted in London on 1 May.  Photo: Guy Bell, Shutterstock / NTB.

QUEUE IN PASSPORT CHECK: Travelers across Europe report hour-long passport queues at airports – here at Stansted in London on 1 May. Photo: Guy Bell, Shutterstock / NTB.
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Still, there was a two to three hour wait and longer.

Eight days later, on May 27, there was almost no queue.

– We have closed the possibility of drawing a queue most days. With that scheme, 250-300 people had pulled the queue immediately after opening. We are working to extend the opening hours for pick-up without it going much beyond the waiting time for those who have booked an appointment to apply for a passport or national ID card, informs the chief of the passport organization in the Oslo police district.

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