A fuming British traveller claimed to miss his flight home from Malaga Airport due to long passport queues at the weekend.
Craig Farrage said he was forced to buy a new plane ticket for this Monday and stay an extra night in Estepona, without any compensation.
He said his flight was at 12.20pm on Sunday, but despite queueing from 10am, he did not get past passport control until 12.30pm.
Posting in an Estepona forum on Facebook, he wrote: ‘Well Malaga Airport what can I say… we stood in line from 10am, flight was 12.20pm and didn’t get through until 12.30pm so staying an extra night bac in Estepona.
‘The setup is just madness at the minute, will try again tomorrow.’
When asked if he was put on another flight for free, he added: ‘I had to rebook, nobody seems to have an answer at the airport so as it stands flight went, had to pay again.’
The Spanish Eye has contacted Craig for further information, and the Policia Nacional, who manage passport control.
Adele Lee Sutch added: ‘We flew from Malaga to Cardiff this morning with TUI, absolutely horrendous, our plane left 25 minutes late due to waiting on passengers, 25 passengers missed the flight.’
Adam Leith chimed in: ‘I left on a Jet2 flight yesterday, was a shambles. I got on in time, but the plane waited on 30 passengers and left 45 minutes late. The guys at passport control are taking the p***.’
‘I’ve just came back to the UK today and the airport was absolutely crazy.’
However, many passengers said they got through Malaga controls without problems at different times of the day.
It seems there are peak times when passport control, which is phasing in the EU’s new Entry/Exit System, becomes overwhelmed by large numbers of arriving or departing British or non-EU passengers.
Under they new system, anyone from a non-Schengen or ‘third country’ must use biometric scanners, which keep track of the number of days they have spent in the EU (ensuring they don’t exceed their 90 in 180 day limit).
As the system has just begun, Brits are using the machines for the first time, and are having to register their fingerprints and face scans, leading to delays when they are up and running at peak times.
However, at Malaga Airport, several Brits claim to have found a ‘hack’ that allows them to skip the snaking non-EU passport queue.
Jimmy Blackman explained: ‘I was also in that queue at that time. I realised that you can register your passport on the machines to the right of the queue and then literally walk straight through the EU section on the right hand side and straight through the gate.. it shaved at least an hour off the queue, but the sign posting and awareness is terrible. Something to note for next time maybe.’
Neil Storey, said he had the same experience, adding: ‘You can use the scanners to the right near the windows before the queue and then go through the e-gates to avoid the queue.
‘I only found this out after queuing for an hour. Our Jet2 to Newcastle today left 20mins late and left some behind.’
Lynn Hegarty said: ‘The queue was slow today at 12pm, it would have probably taken three quarters of an hour to get through to the B and C gates but a Malaga airport helper told us to use the scanners on the right just by the windows, then we could go through the e-gate queue which was very quick . We are British passport holders, not EU.’
Well, you voted for Brexit and now you’re enjoying some of its benefits.