The misery of interminable border controls at Lisbon, and often Faro, airport may be coming to an end.
Hot-on-the-heels of pressure from the country’s hoteliers association, the government has created a ‘task force’ to “manage the flux of passengers”, and report daily on waiting times, and any incidents that take place.
In ‘periods of pressure’ (holiday periods, particularly) contingency plans will be put in motion to ensure there are more border control staff drafted in.
ECO online brings the news, saying this is the way the government has chosen to deal with the “chaotic situation experienced in the airports”, especially Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado terminal.
In a dispatch, the executive also insists that a “plan to install more electronic booths and kiosks should also be implemented as a matter of urgency”, while “the renegotiation of contracts with external companies that provide border control services also falls within the remit” of the new team.
Bernardo Trindade, president of AHP which wrote a letter to the government earlier this week citing “the serious disfunction” at Lisbon airport, says his association “will be here to really accompany” the initiative.
“One of the things we stressed in the Open Letter to the government – without knowing of the creation of this task force – is the necessity to monitor results. This is something that needs to be permanently accompanied – eventually with access to international benchmarks of good practices,” he said, reiterating that right now, “the state has failed, it fails every day, in fundamental areas of sovereignty, and in the maintenance of the country’s image”.
The measures announced were already in the making before AHP’s furious later. ECO explains that they “take into account the conclusions and recommendations of the audit of the airport border control system carried out by KPMG between July and September 2025”.
SIC adds that passengers in and out of this country have been facing long queues at passport control for several months.
The agony amplified earlier this month when a new European system for entry/ exits into Schengen space was brought in. Waiting times stretched into hours.
With any luck, these miseries will all melt away over the next few days…
sources: ECO/ SIC/ Diário de Notícias
