Anyone been delayed entering the EU due to passport stamping? (2nd attempt)

[sadkingbilly]

I'm sorry but this is a serious issue. Even smegheads with Irish passports get delayed by being in a queue behind "I've only one passport" British folk. Frankly, they should be banned from travelling abroad at all!

I agree - smegheads with Irish passports should be banned!

[vwdan]

Travelled abroad 3x times this year with the family and no major issues

[woody1]

Looks like it's just the airport in Lanzarote struggling with this.

[WTFH]

Looks like it's just the airport in Lanzarote struggling with this.

They have probably been trained by the people behind T5 baggage handling.

[Eirikur]

Travelled abroad 3x times this year with the family and no major issues

Amsterdam airport, a few weeks ago, myself and kids with EU passports were through in 1 minute. Wife, UK passport, 45 minutes, me and the kids went to a cafe and had lunch, my wife just queued.

[dsc]

There's normally separate queues for non-EU and EU, though some Brits still don't know which one to pick...Typically non-EU takes way longer as extra checks can be carried out, facial scanning (seems random, not every person), stamping etc. If there's a tulip ton of people in the non-EU one, well it just takes longer, so arrive earlier, it's not rocket science.

[woody1]

Turned out not too bad. No delay on the way in. Flight delayed 1 hour 20 mins on the way out due to shortage of Police Officers*.

My wife gets the Lanzarote Gazette emailed to her every week. According to one of their reporters, more Police Officers are deployed for arrivals, and anecdotally there also seems to be a pecking order with the airlines, with Ryanair seeming to come off the worse. This weekend 60 of their passengers didn't make it on to a plane. Alternatively, maybe they are just more concerned about taking off on time than leaving people behind?

One other thing we noticed is that a lot of the UK budget airline flights (Ryanair, easyJet, Jet2) were busing passengers to and from planes on the tarmac, whereas other operators like TUI and foreign carriers were using the jet bridges. Presumably, that's probably down to the amount they are paying the airport (ie. the cheapo option)?

* I don't know if this is the same with other Spanish airports but, in Lanzarote, only Police Officers can check and stamp passports

[Zigenare]

Had a long weekend in Palma recently. I got through the electronic gates and my passport stamped in less time than it took my Irish Passport carrying wife just to get through the Electronic gates.

[Snooky]

Had a long weekend in Palma recently. I got through the electronic gates and my passport stamped in less time than it took my Irish Passport carrying wife just to get through the Electronic gates.

We had a similar experience arriving at Faro airport in Portugal this summer. I've got both a UK and an Irish passport and if you have an EU passport you can take your partner/dependents through the EU gate with you. The non-EU queue was huge so we joined the EU one, but only got through just before the people we would have been behind in the non-EU queue. But Faro is very weird, they have lots of shiny e-Passport gates which never seem to be in use, so you're subject to the vagaries of how many border control people they have in their little cabins and how long they want to spend chatting up attractive passengers ahead of you.

[Zigenare]

Is she technologically challenged? I've seen many people take ages to get through. Eventually, they get called out and go to a desk.

Nope, she is isn't, however there were other people who "had problems" - think how dumb your average person is and then remember that half the population are dumber than that...

What I suspect was the "real" problem was that there were quite a few "Irish Passport" holders on the flight from Manchester, but as you'd expect more UK Passports so the slots for Passport Control were configured "90%" to "10%" but the number of "EU Passport" holders was greater than the authorities expected - thus taking a greater time for non UK Passport holders to wait in this instance.

It made for an interesting study in "flow" and an opportunity to gloat...