The interior ministry points to there having been meetings with police and the airports authority Aena regarding resourcing once air traffic recovered following the pandemic. These meetings agreed police deployment at the main airports. From June 20, therefore, there will be reinforcement from 500 officers.
Fifty of these officers are to be assigned to Palma Son Sant Joan, the third busiest airport. The largest number, 189, will be for Spain's busiest airport, Madrid-Barajas, and 90 for the second busiest - Barcelona-El Prat. The rest of the officers will be deployed at Alicante, Malaga, Valencia, Menorca, Ibiza, Tenerife South, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria. Overall, the number of police at Spanish airports will increase from 1,456 in 2019 to 1,726.
The interior ministry has meanwhile stated that there have not been any complaints from Aena or from passengers about delays at passport controls. The ministry insisted on Tuesday: "We reiterate that there are no queues or delays that go beyond specific situations generated by the coincidence of several flights coming from outside the Schengen area. There is no evidence that these have resulted in missing flights." In this regard, the ministry is denying claims by Iberia that some 15,000 passengers at Madrid have missed flights. This figure has been given "without any demonstration" that it is due to incidents at passport control.
Iberia and the IATA International Air Transport Association have been highly critical of the interior ministry's management of the airports. A further voice, that of the Mesa del Turismo de España of leading figures in Spain's tourism and travel industry, has been added to this criticism. It says that there is "a situation of chaos" and has called on the tourism minister, Reyes Maroto, to mediate.
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