British holidaymakers are likely to face “endless queues” at Spanish airports this summer. Delays, caused by lack of airport security personnel, look set to carry on into the summer as Spanish airports struggle to cope.
The issue has been raised by Javier Gandara, the president of the Spanish association of airlines, ALA.
Gandara said: “The image of endless queues or missed connections is the last thing we need.”
Last weekend there were unprecedented queues at Madrid Barajas Airport. The lengthy waits caused many passengers to miss onward connecting flights and have a forced stopover in Madrid.
Gandara said as many as 1,000 tourists were affected in Madrid last weekend on connecting flights – while 4,500 had been impacted throughout March.
Now that the UK left the EU, British passport holders have to been stamped in and out of Spain. This is also likely to be heavily contributing to the problems. As many as 1 in 4 tourist that visit Spain are British
According to the Irish Mirror, Travellers shared pictures from Malaga Airport which had sectioned off two separate passport queues.
One was sealed off with black tape and signposted with a union jack for ‘all passengers’. The other was enclosed with green tape and shows an Irish tricolour and EU flag while labelled for ‘EU citizens’.
“Four hours queue in Malaga airport for non-EU passport holders, meanwhile everyone else walking on,” one person wrote on Twitter.
What to do if you are booked to travel to Spain?
Unless you have a connecting flight – there isn’t too much to worry about. There may be delays and you may have to wait longer than usually to pass through security.
Hopefully, the issue in Madrid last week will encourage the Spanish government to resolve the problems with additional security staff.
If you have a connecting flight – it may be best to try and amend it with your airline to allow sufficient time to transit.
