Passengers flying into Lisbon this morning discovered a backlog at passport/ border control, in spite of the fact that every available booth was ‘manned’ by PSP agents.
According to anecdotal reports, some people who arrived at 6am were “still queuing at 11am”.
Lusa news agency gives a different perspective: “Waiting time at frontier control at Lisbon airport this Sunday reached a peak of two hours for anyone arriving at 8.30am, but afterwards reduced to less than an hour”.
The statement was credited to sources for the PSP and ANA (airports manager) – and comes just as it has been announced that the EU border control system that led to such misery last year has been re-adopted, with contingency measures.
Issues at the airport were invariably ‘in the mornings’, when a number of international flights arrive in quick succession.
After these early flights today, waiting times reduced, and are now running at ‘around 30 minutes’, according to a PSP source, who stressed the ‘contingency plan’ to cope with the Easter holiday influx is fully in place, and “all available control posts” are being “occupied by police”, as well as a ‘new area of frontier control’, with 10 additional posts (all ‘completely filled’).
The objective (of the contingency measures) is to “guarantee that waiting times” at Lisbon, and Faro, in the Algarve, are “as little as possible, without compromising security and the resilience of the frontiers”.
Lisbon has seen an extra 30 PSP agents drafted in, Faro reportedly has an extra 15.
There is also the promised roll-out of the ‘make-it-simpler’ travel app.
After initial months of sheer agony implementing the EU’s new ‘entry/exit system’, airports throughout the bloc have been told they must be using it by next month (April) – hence the Easter contingency measures (very possibly returning for the peak of the summer season).
source material: Lusa
