(Photo: US Border Patrol.)

If accurate, this is good news:
The State Department said Friday it has worked through a massive backlog in passport applications and that processing times are back to normal after months of major delays that disrupted summer travel plans for thousands of Americans.

The department said steps taken to deal with the crisis — the hiring of hundreds of new adjudicators, temporary transfers of employees to passport centers and the opening of a new facility to handle the deluge — had brought the waiting period for a standard application back to six to eight weeks and three weeks for expedited service.

Nonetheless, all travel agents, home-based or not, will be well advised to counsel their clients on the wisdom of allowing plenty of time when applying for a passport.

A great value-added service, IMHO, that home-based travel agents can provide their clients is to keep track of passport information: This would include filing photocopies of the ID pages (in case of loss), passport numbers, and expiration dates. Let your people know nine months before expiration that it's time to get a new passport.

Too much lead time? I don't think so. Remember that some countries won't let people in if they have less than six months remaining on their passport!