The new EES entry/exit system appears to be causing more trouble than was expected this summer. There are already reports of British tourists avoiding EES destinations like Mallorca and Spain for destinations such as Greece and Portugal which have sensibly eased the new controls until after the summer season as a result of chaos and queues.
And the impact of the war in the Middle East and the run on jet fuel has also got to be taken into account with conflicting reports over flight cancellations and flight alterations. However, as Spain appears to be sticking to its guns, Travelling for Business, has warned that Spain has come under particular criticism for its handling of the new biometric border regime, with several other member states moving to relax checks at peak periods.
Jürgen Himmelmann, co-founder of Global Work & Travel and DealsAway, said travellers should not assume their itinerary was safe simply because their departure airport was not on the strike list. “The risk for British travellers is not just whether their airport is directly named in the strike action,” he said. “It is whether the wider Spanish network is under pressure at the same time they are travelling.
“Palma, Alicante and Málaga are three of the airports I would be watching closely this summer, not because their towers are necessarily part of the SAERCO strike, but because they are major gateways for UK travellers. When you combine high passenger volumes, tight turnaround times, air traffic control disruption elsewhere and new border checks, these are the kinds of airports where problems can escalate quickly.”
He added: “Spain is still one of the most popular destinations for British travellers, but that also means disruption is felt at scale. A delay that starts at a smaller regional airport can have a knock-on effect on aircraft rotations, crew hours and later departures, especially during peak travel weeks.”
In Ibiza, for example, The British Association of Sant Antoni, Ibiza, which is chaired by Martin Makepeace, has sent a formal letter to the president of the Council of Ibiza, Vicent Marí, has recently highlighting the “worrying” situation faced by third-country nationals, particularly British nationals, when passing through passport control at Ibiza airport, even though they hold a Foreign Identity Card (TIE).
While over the Bank Holiday weekend in Palma, some Britons were forced to queue for over two hours to get through border control. In Palma, frontline staff have apparently been told they may temporarily divert families and passengers with reduced mobility to traditional stamping queues when the wait in biometric queues exceeds 25 minutes.
They may also stagger flight arrivals by coordinating with Aena’s slot management team, a measure already tested in Málaga. These measures are apparently “adjustments, not a suspension”, and that biometric capture remains mandatory for first-time registrants, but there are fears the situation could get much worse during the busy summer season.