A Spanish airport descended into chaos today as hundreds of passengers waited in hour-long queues amid staff shortages at passport control – with fights reportedly breaking out among frustrated travellers.
Footage taken from inside Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas airport shows huge crowds waiting in line with their passports in hand as they wait to get through to their boarding gates.
Long waits and overcrowding at passport control checkpoints at Madrid airport’s Terminal 4 have led to a tense atmosphere as passengers feared they might miss their flights.
In some instances, the Civil Guard reportedly had to intervene to contain the tension with ‘scuffles’ breaking out among some passengers, according to 20minutos.
Hundreds of travellers are understood to have missed their flights as a result of the delays.
Sources told local media that ‘half of the passport control posts were empty, resulting in an average wait of 60 minutes to get through security’ this morning.
Early reports had suggested that the blockage may have been caused by a collapse in passport scanning systems, but airport operator Aena denied this and said that the disruption had been caused by a lack of police personnel.
‘At Aena, we are collaborating with the Police to control the flow of people and prevent it from becoming a situation of congestion,’ the operator said in a statement to Spanish news outlet 20Minutos.
The operator has also insisted that delays such as the one seen today are common at the height of the summer.
Aena told MailOnline: ‘We are experiencing a high influx of passengers and this morning it was noted at the passport controls at Terminal 4.’
‘At this time, the queues have already subsided and the passage through the control is smooth again’, it added.
Passengers travelling inside Spain and the rest of the European Union have not been affected by the delays, El Pais reports.
Large blockages have also been formed on the platforms of the airport’s underground shuttle system.
Frustrated passengers have take to social media to complain about the delays at the airport, with one X user writing: ‘Arrived at the Madrid airport 4 hours before our flight and made it with a little bit of time to have a croissant and coffee. We board our flight and are now stuck waiting on 70 other passengers who are still passing through security.’
‘I have been working in aviation for more than 20 years and I have never seen something like this’, another wrote.
A third said: ‘This is embarrassing.’
Others blamed Spain’s socialist Transport Minister Oscar Puente for his lack of foresight at the start of the summer season.
The severe delays at the capital’s airport come just two days after more than 300 passengers headed to Malaga from Madrid on the high-speed rail were stranded for 14 hours onboard the train as a result of a power failure.
Those affected described suffering from panic attacks as they waited in the stifling heat.
