A British holidaymaker left stranded in Malaga with her daughter after missing her flight amid new EU travel rules said border guards insinuated it was her fault.
New regulations stipulating travellers have their photographs and fingerprints taken as they pass through the Schengen area have been sparking ‘mayhem’ in recent days, according to exasperated passengers.
There were miserable scenes at Linate Airport in Milan on Sunday as around 100 easyJet customers were abandoned while waiting to board a flight to Manchester.
But the saga has spread across the continent with delays, cancellations and cases of passengers being stranded in departure lounges reported from Brussels to Geneva to Malta.
Michelle Maguire, 38, and her daughter were due to fly back from Malaga to Liverpool on Saturday evening but did not make it home until 24 hours later after getting held up in travel chaos which eventually cost the family £1,000.
Despite arriving at the airport three hours ahead of their flight and the passport queue 90 minutes before departure, the new rules soon left the holidaymakers scrambling to get home.
With the line barely moving and time ticking, Ms Maguire desperately searched for anyone who could explain what was going on and even tried going straight up to one of the passport desks before bluntly being herded back into the line.
‘Everyone was in the same situation,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘We were telling staff, “we’re going to miss our flight.”‘
They were greeted with an unequivocal response: ‘It’s not our problem. Get back in the queue.’
Ms Maguire painted the picture of a packed airport engulfed in bedlam with anxious travellers jostling for position and attempting to get through passport control via different entrances.
‘Everyone was panicking. Everyone was getting frustrated,’ she added. ‘Kids were crying.
‘There was no one attending the crowd which was making it worse. People were coming out and coming back in.’
Eventually, with around half an hour until her flight was due to leave for the UK, Ms Maguire made it to the border control desks where she discovered the full extent of staff incompetence which had been causing the hold-up.
The mother said: ‘It was really weird. We did the whole queue for over an hour and then when we could see the desks, it seemed like there was no rush. There was no urgency at all.’
Things were made worse by the fact that most booths were empty, an after-effect of the strikes which have gripped Spanish airports in recent weeks.
But those who were working at the border control desks had no great desire to make their way through the thousands of passports being waved at them, according to Ms Maguire.
‘No one cared if we made our flight,’ she added. ‘It was not a priority and there was definitely no empathy.’
The EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) is still in its infancy with Ms Maguire among the first wave of passengers subjected to the new checks.
She said: ‘It felt like that bit took ages, but I don’t even feel like they were doing it that thoroughly.
‘They weren’t speaking or giving you any direction of where you need to stand, or whether to make your face clear.
‘It felt like in my picture there were loads of people in the background, pushing to get forward. It did not feel like a thorough check. It was just box-ticking.’
Once this excruciating process was over, she and her group raced to the gate and, to their relief, managed to make it with 20 minutes to spare.
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But the joy was short-lived. The official at the desk told her their flight was just about to depart and they could not join their fellow passengers on the plane.
‘The airline should have held it for as long as possible,’ she said. ‘They knew [what was going to happen].’
Ms Maguire was not the only victim of the chaos and has since lodged a joint complaint with four other families whose return home was blighted by the delays.
Some passengers were even separated from their family members, she claimed, as the full extent of the disarray was laid bare.
While Ms Maguire accepts the main portion of blame lies at the door of the airport staff, she insisted the airlines must also take responsibility.
She said: ‘The Ryanair desk was heaving because they had over-filled the flight. When we got there, they said, “you need to sort out your own flight and we’re not helping you”.
‘No one at the desk was willing to help us. It was absolute mayhem.’
Many of those left stranded at Malaga Airport simply coughed up the cash and booked onto the next flight back to Liverpool.
But with tickets soaring beyond £500, this was not an option for Ms Maguire and she had no choice but to head to Glasgow the following morning, rent a car, and make the four-hour journey to Merseyside to collect her own vehicle – before driving back home to Halifax, West Yorkshire.
The marathon undertaking was made more painful by the sleepless night she endured following the stress of the evening’s events.
In sharp contrast, her husband and son enjoyed an effortless journey back to Britain using their Irish passports.
Ms Maguire said: ‘There is definitely an issue with British passports.
‘Are we getting punished for Brexit? I’m not sure. But it feels like there is an undertone that it’s your fault.
For years, Ms Maguire has enjoyed visiting southern Spain every few months, but the nightmare experience – which set her back a day of her time as well as hundreds of pounds – has put her off visiting Europe entirely.
She said: ‘I travel to Malaga often, but it’s actually put me off. I don’t feel like I could do that again.
‘We do lots of weekends away with the kids to different European cities. I would not do that right now.
‘Seeing the kids worried and upset and crying. It’s not worth it, and it’s not worth the extra expense.
‘It’s not a problem going away any time soon’ she said. ‘It’s not just happening in Malaga, it’s happening all over Europe.
‘How early are we going to have to start going to the airport. Do you want to spend six hours there before you fly?’
New travel rules caused more disruption on Monday, with passengers waiting to have their passports checked at Brussels Airport and Schiphol in Amsterdam taking to social media to report delays of up to two hours.
One passenger in Amsterdam described ‘elderly people and parents with toddlers’ waiting in line for passport gates, ‘hardly any’ of which were open. The airport’s website confirmed there were ‘long delays’.
In heatwave-hit Milan, airline passengers were left vomiting and passing out after waiting for up to three hours on Sunday night.
Around 100 easyJet customers were abandoned at Linate airport while waiting to board the flight to Manchester after the crew decided to leave without them.
EasyJet said the situation was ‘outside of our control’ and issues with the EU’s new border scheme had caused the delays, adding that the hold-ups were ‘unacceptable’.
Aviation expert Sally Gethin said the rollout of EES ‘wasn’t going well’.
‘It’s proving a bumpy ride and a massive headache for travellers,’ she told the Daily Mail.
‘This is going to rumble on for a few weeks and even when it’s fully bedded down there could be some sporadic issues.
‘But you can expect that. There are always teething problems when new technology is rolled out.
‘When you bring into the mix all this bureaucracy and people having to implement it you’re always going to have issues. It’s also incredibly ambitious and across so many countries.’
Ms Gethin said many flyers were ‘confused’ about the scheme and believes the UK Government could have done more to educate them.
‘The UK Government has come in for criticism for not raising enough awareness,’ she said.
‘To the average person travelling it’s quite confusing. You’re going on holiday so will be a bit stressed already
‘You’re also having frequent flyers who thought they would only have to input their personal data once but are now having to do it multiple times.’
The Daily Mail understands that easyJet delayed last night’s flight from Milan by 52 minutes to allow customers extra time but, with the crew approaching the end of their safety-regulated working hours, the flight was forced to head off half empty.
The saga left customers scrambling for alternative means of getting home with some discovering they had missed their flight while still in the queue.
