PSOE members of Congress from the Balearics have attacked the national government over what they say has been "negligence" with regard to airport passport control.
Referring to the queues at Balearic airports, Sofía Hernanz and Pere Joan Pons have called fror an increase in personnel to deal with them. They have registered twelve written questions seeking explanations from the government as to how it proposes dealing with the queues.
Hernanz and Pons say that the queues have existed since the introduction of new measures of passenger control by the European Union. But they have not been accompanied by an increase in police numbers in order to quicken them up.
Among the questions, they want to know whether the government has indeed increased the number of officers, if "emergency" measures have been adopted, and whether the government has any idea how many passengers have missed flights because of the queues. "The government cannot continue to be passive at a time of such large influx of tourists."
Lamenting the government's "inaction", they point to the harm caused to Spain's tourism image and indeed to passengers. They want the government to meet Aena and unions in order to find solutions and to include specific items in the 2018 budget to help overcome the passport-control problems.
This weekend has been another record one at Palma airport with 180,198 passengers handled yesterday and aircraft landing and taking off every 90 seconds. There have been the inevitable queues, including tailbacks on access roads to the airport. As for passport control, there are still the long queues, but social media - highly active in reporting the situation - paints a reasonable picture. Even with long queues, passengers are being processed quickly. As has been the case ever since this became an issue, the situation at passport control continues to vary at different times of the day.
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Tourism is Mallorca's only real industry. It's madness to persecute tourists with unreasonable queues and hassle at the airport. Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg? We Northern Europeans love Mallorca and are only here for a few weeks a year. We bring money in and don't take it out. This hatred of tourists is hard to fathom. Would islanders really rather go back to the poverty of the pre-tourism days??
I sincerely hope that affected passengers vote with their feet next summer. The choice of holiday location is huge and many countries have coped with this issue. Try Croatia, Turkey, or, for the same money, go to USA. Mallorca tourism should hang its head and admit that its ability to manage the prime industry of the region is failing.
Government must accept the blame for this happening, but also the airlines too, if baggage can only checked in 2hours before the flight and then you queue for security and then passport control, it's irrelevant what time you arrive at the airport!