British holidaymakers flying to Europe warned of 3-hour airport delays with no deal

Staff reporter(wp/es):::

Millions of British holidaymakers flying to Europe this summer were today warned they face chaotic queues of up to three hours at airports in countries such as Spain, Greece and Italy in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Tom Jenkins, chief executive of the European Tourism Association (ETOA), which represents more than 900 travel operators and tourist bodies, said extra border checks required by Brussels would bring “tourism Armageddon”.

He said immigration desks at the most popular Mediterranean destinations such as Palma de Mallorca could be overwhelmed “even with Heathrow levels of investment”.

He added passengers at airports that hit capacity after two or three arrivals would face waits of several hours. He said: “As some airports have UK arrivals coming in every 10 to 20 minutes, unless something is done now, we are going to run into major difficulties.”

Delays will be caused European Commission rules issued in November that stop Britons using lanes allocated for citizens of EU or European Economic Area countries and Switzerland if the UK crashes out on March 29.

They will require immigration staff to make four extra entry checks on British travellers: the expiry date of the passport, a database confirmation of the validity of the passport, the purpose and length of stay, and whether the visitors can support themselves financially.

This will add an estimated 90 seconds per passenger to the usual 25 seconds spent at passport control. With each plane holding an average of 200 passengers, this could cause huge delays.

Portugal said earlier this week it would introduce special passport lanes for British tourists at Faro and Funchal airports. 

However Mr Jenkins said EU member states would not unilaterally be able to relax rules imposed by Brussels. 

Speaking after an emergency ETOA conference on Brexit at the Barbican this week, he warned that in the case of no deal, British airline passengers face  “a cross between the volcanic ash cloud disruption and the three-day week”.

A spokesman for industry body Airlines UK said Britain’s major carriers had been planning for extra checks. He said: “The commission has been clear UK passengers will be treated as being from a third country and this will likely mean extra checks at the border. 

“Individual EU member states will have to plan accordingly depending on their own infrastructure needs. 

The commission has told them in no uncertain terms that they should prepare their airports for no deal.”

A UK government spokesperson said: “We welcome the proposal by the European Commission to put UK citizens on a visa-free list for short trips to the EU even in the event of no deal.

“We have been clear in our proposals that we want to ensure reciprocal measures on visa-free travel for tourists and short term business visitors with the EU.”

UK residents made a record 54.6 million visits to other EU member countries in 2017.