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

[ladymuck]

I was quite entertained when visiting Prague last month. I swear the officer on the desk was trying to reconcile all the entry and exit stamps to make sure I wasn't an over stayer! They eventually gave up and stamped me in.

[woody1]

Lanzarote seem to have got their act together, and there were no delays the last couple of times we went.

Might be a different story when EES eventually goes live.

[Zigenare]

Just returned from a weekend in Barcelona - no delay getting in and no delay getting out. Wife and Offspring have Irish passports, I have a UK one.

[woody1]

Is that because other nationalities prefer somewhere nicer?

As in, not full of Brits.

Many of the places popular with Brits are also very popular with Irish and Germans.

[Paddy]

EES delayed.

https://etias.com/articles/eu-entry/...-delayed-again

Although this article doesn't say so, apparently we're a major part of the "problem". Tens of millions of us travelling to the EU every year.

Perhaps, when they first came up with this, we were still a member and 3rd countries only accounted for a small % of visitors.

66,770,000 UK visits to the EU per year.

[woody1]

Is this part of "they need us more than we need them?".

Many tourist areas are dependent on us, although they may wish they weren't.

[woody1]

EES delayed.

https://etias.com/articles/eu-entry/...-delayed-again

Although this article doesn't say so, apparently we're a major part of the "problem". Tens of millions of us travelling to the EU every year.

Perhaps, when they first came up with this, we were still a member and 3rd countries only accounted for a small % of visitors.

[agentzero]

I went to Europe a number of times over the last year, no problems as a British passport holder went straight through Barcelona airport multiple times, the UK airports were far worse for some reason.

Given you're in England, you were already in Europe, so it would've been difficult to accept you "went to Europe", since you already live there.

Still, what are facts.

[vetran]

I went to Europe a number of times over the last year, no problems as a British passport holder went straight through Barcelona airport multiple times, the UK airports were far worse for some reason.

[woody1]

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

Next time might be different. Finger printing and facial scanning from 10 November. ETIAS some time next year.

Could be "fun" for Brits arriving in Malaga, Alicante, Palma, Faro etc next summer.

[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...

[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]

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.

[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

[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.