MISERY AS FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE...
FAMILIES desperate to get to their hotels had to wait in cramped queues for an hour at Palma Airport yesterday.
The delays at passport control were caused by a serious shortage of border guards, with just four grim-faced officers processing the arrivals of hundreds of passengers last night.
After being handed a passport, the Spanish border guards spent up to five minutes tapping into a computer before gesturing families through without so much as a smile or an apology.
After their packed – and delayed – Thomson flight from Bristol landed, the chatter of excited children faded to groans as the scale of the waiting time became clear. Some slumped on the floor and started asking their parents when they’d be in their hotels, only moving forward every five minutes.
As she arrived at the back of the queue, Linda Parsons, 39, of Bristol, quipped: ‘Well that’s it, we’re here for the night.’
One pensioner, who asked not to be named, told the Daily Mail she thought the cramped, bottle-neck queue could be dangerous.
‘I’m not quite comfortable here, I’ve got to be honest,’ the lady, in her eighties, said. ‘Hopefully we get through quickly.’
Alison Walters, 40, on holiday with husband Tim, 47, and their two daughters, said: ‘This is ridiculous. But if it prevents terrorism then there’s not much you can say against it.’ A Spanish airport stew- ard said the delays were usually ‘three times as bad’. She added: ‘It is always very busy here. Passengers can wait for two hours. They get impatient and criticise us, but when I go to Gatwick I have to wait that long. It’s the way things are everywhere.’
Asked by one passenger how long it would take to get to the baggage reclaim area, a member of cabin crew took a harsh intake of breath as he said: ‘To be honest, it’s pretty bad at the moment because it’s peak season.’
He added: ‘Honestly, it could be anything up from an hour.’
The families from Bristol were joined by hundreds from London Heathrow, Liverpool and Humberside which landed within half an hour of each other.
It means the total number of passengers that needed to be processed was likely to be well over 600. Passengers from Manchester, Leicester and Leeds joined later. The scene was somewhat calmer at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport last night, as passengers made their way through Europe’s third busiest airport.
But with just two border guards checking passports, the queues through to the baggage hall built up. Employees last night spoke of the chaos that has engulfed the airport, which sees 63.3million passengers a year pass through its three terminals.
One member of staff, working in the baggage hall, said: ‘The maximum wait according to management rules is 45 minutes, but the queues have been going over that about ten times a month.’ This Monday was the busiest day of the year for the airport, with 230,000 passengers passing through.
Another man, who was shepherding passengers through passport control, said: ‘Monday in departures was terrible. The queues started at 8am. It was moving OK but there were a lot of people.
‘I haven’t been in arrivals much, but queues of four hours, I don’t know, it’s possible.’
Staff were quick to point out that the queues hit Britain and travellers outside the EU harder.
A member of cabin crew said: ‘It’s become much busier now because it’s holiday season, it’s much worse than it was. Most of the passen-
gers don’t have to show their passports but Britain’s not in Schengen so you have to show it.’
The airport’s Twitter account told a passenger on Monday: ‘We are expecting a lot of arriving passengers next week. When it’s particularly crowded we will work to make sure the passenger flow will go as smoothly as possible.
‘For this summer period we are hiring more staff for this process to ensure a quick arrival.’