Iberia denounces that 15,000 passengers have missed the plane in Barajas due to the chaos in passport control | Economy

Iberia has denounced this Monday the chaos that has occurred again in the passport control area of ​​the T4 terminal of the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport, forcing the delay of the departure of some of its flights. It is not the first time that this situation has occurred since the airline estimates that about 15,000 customers have lost their connection since March 1, due to crowds in the police control area. This is a problem that affects not only Madrid, but also tourist airports such as Alicante, Malaga, Tenerife Sur or Palma, among others, according to the Airline Association (ALA).

This Monday, the company’s flights to Buenos Aires, Chicago (USA) and Miami (USA) have been affected, which have taken off with a delay of between 15 and 25 minutes, having to wait for passengers who were trapped at police checkpoints, according to the company. The closure of the automatic filters has caused long queues and crowds in the passport control area between 10:00 and 12:00 this morning, which is one of the three departure times for Iberia’s transatlantic flights. Ten minutes before the scheduled departure time of his flight to Buenos Aires, there were still 100 passengers to board.

ALA has repeatedly called on the Ministry of the Interior since the pandemic restrictions were lifted to increase police forces at passport controls at airports with the highest density of international traffic. In addition, he has demanded as a solution that the British can pass this summer the control by the automatic machines where the community citizens go to speed up this transit, as Portugal has done. After Brexit, British citizens cannot use these machines, which read the electronic passport, and have to go through physical control, which is causing tension in the area, according to the association.

The president of Aena, Maurici Lucena, also announced at the end of April that he was negotiating measures with the Ministry of the Interior to avoid queues such as those that have been registered this Easter at the police controls of some airports, which caused 3,000 passengers not to be able to catch your flight