Spain

At Madrid airport, the queues for passport controls have been long in recent weeks.

The Spanish airline Iberia, one of the country's largest, has said it estimates that 15,000 of its passengers have missed their departures since March 1, because they have not reached their gate in time.

However, the long queues are expected to decrease in the future.

The Spanish police are in the process of hiring new staff to deal with the large increase in tourists since the country eased its pandemic restrictions.

More staff will also be employed at Barcelona Airport.

Passengers queue to check in their bags at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain on April 8.

Photo: Fernando Villar / Epa / TT

Netherlands

Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the third busiest in Europe, has struggled with long queues due to a lack of security personnel and understaffed security checks.

To expect to catch up with their flight, Schiphol urges travelers to arrive at the airport four hours before departure.

On 3 June, the Dutch airline KLM announced that it was canceling up to 50 departures per day between 4 and 6 June, a long national weekend, in order to be able to book passengers who have missed their flights on new departures.

The airport has already agreed to increase staff salaries and also promised to hire more staff.

At Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, passengers are only allowed to pass the security check if their flight departs within four hours.

On June 3, passengers had to queue outside the airport.

Photo: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen / AFP / TT

France

On Thursday, staff at Charles De Gaulle's airport in Paris went on strike to demand better wages and working conditions.

- We demand an increase of 300 euros for everyone, said a union representative in a statement, pointing to rising inflation and substandard working conditions during the corona pandemic.

The strike resulted in the cancellation of a quarter of all departures at the airport and major delays for passengers.

On June 9, all staff at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France went on strike to demand higher wages.

A quarter of all departures from the airport were canceled during the day.

Photo: Geoffroy van der Hasselt / AFP / TT

UK

At airports in the UK, including Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick, queues for passport and security checks have stretched for miles in recent weeks.

Even at Dublin's airport in Ireland, passengers have been forced to queue for hours.

The reason is, as at many other airports around Europe, a shortage of staff.

At Dublin Airport and Heathrow, work has begun on hiring more security staff to shorten the long queues.

Airlines such as British Airways, Tui and Easyjet have canceled several departures from the UK, also due to an ongoing shortage of staff.

Staff shortages, long queues and canceled flights have put a damper on many British holidaymakers.

On May 31, long queues rang at check-in stations at Gatwick Airport in London.

Photo: Tolga Akmen / EPA / TT