Expat Forum For People Moving Overseas And Living Abroad banner

Malaga Passport Control

2K views 13 replies 10 participants last post by  Dunpleecin 
#1 ·
Evening all,
We are flying into Malaga this Sunday, needless to say I've been reading about the long delays around Europe, Has anyone flown into Malaga this week or know what delays I should expect when we arrive. I need to plan for 2 children just incase :fingerscrossed:
 
#3 ·
The situation is that there is a new directive meaning that instead of purely doing a visual check of your passport to make sure it's you, the authorities now scan each passport. This obviously takes a lot longer for each passenger. If you want to have an idea how long you will be waiting there are two theories. Firstly there are set target times as to how long it should take a passenger to get through passport control so you shouldn't have to take longer than that. In Manchester it's 25 minutes for EU nationals and 45 for non EU I believe. However, as this directive appears to have caught the Spanish authorities by surprise, they are badly understaffed which is what's causing the delays. And it's also the same with outgoing passengers. The UK authorities don't scan going out but the Spanish do. So given that, at the moment, there appears to be a staffing issue with the CNP, your best chance to see how long you're going to be held up is to check the AGP arrivals schedule and see how many flights are due in at the same time as yours. I'm not sure if there's a different queue for internal flights or not but either way if there's only one flight due then it will obviously be less than if there are 20. At least this way might give you some basic idea though. Palma, by the way, is one of the busiest in Europe so it's no surprise that there are huge issues there.
 
#4 ·
Delays

Hi, this is nothing new!
The last time I flew into Malaga was in May this year.
3 flights from the UK had arrived within minutes of each other & everyone had a long wait, at least 45 minutes.
The delay was due to the fact that the airport had installed 4 of the new Passport scanning machines, these take a photo, then a fingerprint, it takes several minutes if the machine works, if not much longer!
The machine my wife used came up with an error, she was directed to an old style booth with a somewhat overworked man inside, he was obviously getting frustrated & just waved her through!
So much for new tighter security! She was allowed into Spain with no passport check being carried out!
The checks before flying back to the UK took seconds.

Hope it all goes smoothly
 
#7 ·
They are also checking Interpol for wanted offenders and for anyone who they believe to be dodgy. Simon Calder says that everybody knew about these new controls coming in to force but failed to recruit more staff and general penny-pinching on hew passport scanning controls on some terminals means this is how it will continue to be. Also that the skies are too packed and air control takes longer during school hols.
 
#10 ·
I flew to Rome in last month. Edinburgh airport was packed at 4am Long queues for the bag drop. Then long queues at security. Very thoroughSame coming back. Won't be travelling in July or August again. Going to Macedonia from Inverness via Luton. They are not in Schengen either. Will let you know how that goes. Love tiny Inverness airport
 
#14 ·
This is the irony really. All that is not controlled yet thousands of holiday makers are put through hell. They really should make an informed security assessment on how likely an easyJet flight full of passengers (who have already been security cleared at point of departure) are to commit an atrocity!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top