QUEUE TURN
Now holidaying British families are just waved through passport checks in the great Spanish...
BRITISH holidaymakers were being waved through passport controls at Spanish airports last night after a U-turn by authorities to avoid a repeat of last week’s chaos.
Hundreds of thousands of British families had been stuck in queues of up to four hours to have passports checked under tough new security rules. Even worse delays were predicted this weekend.
But yesterday, a Mail on Sunday journalist flying in to Palma, Majorca, didn’t even have her passport taken, let alone scanned.
The easy-going attitude was a far cry from the vigilance earlier in the week when new EU anti-terrorist measures meant passports belonging to passengers outside the Schengen free-movement zone were checked against databases.
Airlines and the British Government accused Spanish airport authorities of not ensuring that enough staff were available to conduct the checks that were taking up to four minutes. Normally it would take just seconds.
But yesterday in Palma, which had suffered massive hold-ups, staff glanced at the cover of our reporter’s passport but did not ask her to open it.
When questioned about the lax security procedures, an enforcement officer named Jorge said: ‘We do not have time to scan everyone’s passport. They will have been checked at the departure country anyway and this arrival point is for European flights only.’
Pete Duchars, 59, had flown in from the Isle of Man for a two-week holiday with his wife Elly, 55, and daughters Sasha, 27, and Freya, 17. He said: ‘We had been worried after seeing the news and had been expecting a two-hour queue at least. But actually, they gave our passports a cursory glance at best.
‘It’s farcical having them there at all. The fact there was no check is worrying I suppose – but we were very pleased to be out of the airport in such good time. It took us two minutes to get through.’
At Barcelona’s El Prat airport, father-of-two John Smith, 54, from County Durham, said he and his family had their passports checked but nevertheless went through security in just five minutes.
As he collected his baggage, he said: ‘I was expecting a nightmare to be honest but I’m really pleased with the way it’s gone. It’s a big surprise. I was sitting on the flight getting nervous.’
Meanwhile at Malaga, families said bored-looking officers did not examine their passports.
Security expert Chris Hobbs said he was ‘very surprised’ to hear of passports not being checked.
‘The Spanish may be working on the basis that the airline has already recorded the passenger name and it’s been checked against various databases in the UK,’ he said.