OPINION: Pathetic staffing at Malaga Airport is to blame for passport chaos – not Brexit

Any Brit or ‘third country’ national who regularly flies into Malaga is used to it by now.

After walking off the plane – particularly during peak hours – you are met by a snaking queue and forced to wait for a painful amount of time – in some cases over two hours. 

And now, it seems to be affecting passengers flying out of Malaga too, with queues to pass through passport control increasingly spilling deep inside the terminal. 

Passengers this week reported waiting hours to get through, with many almost missing their flights. 

While some are quick to blame Brexit, the fact is these issues only arise when there is a pitiful number of border agents working. 

I cannot tell you how many times I have caught the morning London to Malaga flight and been forced to queue for well over an hour, only to see TWO people checking passports. 

This is despite airport bosses knowing full well that it is one of the busiest times of the day, with many flights arriving at Malaga from all over the UK. 

What typically happens, is that after an hour of moving at a snail’s pace, a few more agents suddenly emerge (often with a cafe con leche in hand), and the queue begins to dissipate. 

From speaking to Brits caught in the painful queues this week, the same seems to be true when leaving Malaga, too. 

While Brexit means UK citizens now need to have their passports stamped when entering and leaving the Schengen Area, that’s not new, in fact it has been in place since 2021. The issue at Malaga is that there simply aren’t enough border police officers on duty.

Repeatedly, during peak arrival times, when dozens of flights from the UK land within an hour, only a handful of Policia Nacional officers are available to process thousands of passengers.

Malaga Airport handled over 22 million passengers last year, a large share of them from the UK. 

It’s the main gateway to the Costa del Sol, an area that lives and breathes on British tourism. Yet the infrastructure and staffing levels at border control often resemble those of a provincial outpost, not one of Europe’s top holiday destinations.

The truth is that Spain has failed to adapt its border control systems to the post-Brexit reality.

If the UK remains the country’s number one tourism market, then ensuring that entry points like Malaga are properly staffed and resourced should be a top priority. 

Instead, the authorities have treated the problem as seasonal and temporary, when in fact, it’s structural and predictable.