Iberia denounces the chaos in Barajas due to the lack of police at the controls

Tourism may encounter an air collapse at the gates of what is expected to be a record summer in traveler arrivals, that of recovery after two years of pandemic.

Problems have been detected for weeks at some airports due to lack of staff, as is the case in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, two of the main air connection points.

due to the lack of police.

80% of international tourists who visit us arrive by plane, which gives an idea of ​​the problem.

Some airlines, especially British, have had to cancel hundreds of flights in recent months because they do not have enough staff to operate them.

In the United Kingdom there was no ERTE figure during the pandemic, which meant that many companies had to lay off part of the workforce.

British Airways, for example, cut more than 10,000 people.

Now they find that they

.

Last week some of the main European airports, Heathrow, in London, and Amsterdam Schiphol, the third with the most international traffic in the world, suffered significant delays and even flight cancellations.

In the second, the shortage of personnel is such that the flag carrier, KLM, had to suspend the sale of tickets for outbound flights as it could not guarantee the services.

In Spain the problem is another.

The Association of Airlines, ALA, which brings together more than 80 operating airlines, has been warning for months of

, to facilitate flows.

The rapid recovery of international tourism in the last two months, together with the fact that this is the first post-Brexit summer, is causing these filters to collapse.

British tourists now have to go through passport control, something they didn't have to do before the pandemic.

This Monday

, forcing the departure of some of its flights to be delayed.

Specifically, those going to Buenos Aires, Chicago and Miami have taken off late, having to wait for passengers who were trapped at police checkpoints.

missed flights

According to Iberia, about 15,000 passengers have lost their connection since March 1, due to crowds in the police control area.

ALA already denounced in December that more than 5,000 people had lost their flight in the last month due to delays in border controls in Barajas.

At Easter it affected 3,000 passengers.

In addition to the Madrid airport, which is the one with the most traffic,

The airlines warn that this could go further now that the Government has decided to allow travelers from third countries to come, not only with a vaccination certificate, but also with an antigen, which will facilitate the arrival of British tourists, our main issuing market.

"This will make it more important to reinforce the number of police officers

at airport border controls to avoid undesirable queues," says Javier Gándara, president of ALA.

They ask that exceptionally be allowed, as Portugal has done, that these citizens can use the automatic passport control machines used by the rest of the community passengers and thus be able to decongest the filters and avoid queues.

Passport control depends on the Ministry of the Interior

, to which ALA has already sent several letters to denounce the problem.

They recall that the airport manager AENA has increased its workforce, as has Enaire, which already has more air traffic controllers than before the pandemic.

"Although it is clear that the impact of what happens in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands affects us, but as far as it affected us, we

".

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• Malaga

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• Seville

• Iberia

• United Kingdom

• Portugal

• Ministry of Interior

• Holland

• Ibiza

• Alicante

• Baraja's airport

• London

• British Airways

• Brexit

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