Finally the new passport has arrived:
While the news still publish horror stories of people facing all sort of troubles because of the inability to travel due to lack of passport, ours has arrived.
Although it took much longer (over 5 weeks with the online service) than last time we had to renew a passport (about 1 week with the Post Office check and send), as we didn’t need to travel abroad, the delay did not cause us any problems.
If you are interested, this is a chart of where the delays were:
So it took 10 days for the application form to actually be opened, and then another 25 days to process it (this was a straight forward application).
Well, it’s here now!
Luca Rastello 
I read your “Passport saga” while I was waiting for mine to arrive, very informative! 😀
I just wanted to report my 2015 Passport experience – I applied for a First British Passport, HM Passport Office (Durham):
– 06/03/2015 -> ONLINE PASSPORT APPLICATION SUBMITTED
– 22/04/2015 -> PASSPORT APPLICATION DECLARATION + SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS SENT
– 27/04/2015 -> PASSPORT APPLICATION DECLARATION + SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS ARRIVED TO HM PASSPORT OFFICE
– 01/05/2015 -> PASSPORT ISSUED
– 07/05/2015 -> PASSPORT + SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS RECEIVED VIA DHL
In my case I can say that the service was absolutely excellent: it took them not even 10 days to print and send my Passport! 🙂 I must say I was extremely precise in sending all the required documents and probably that helped a lot to speed up the whole process.