Eighty-nine Ryanair customers bound for Bristol spent an unexpected night in Lanzarote on 28 February after passport-control queues snaked across the non-Schengen arrivals hall, delaying boarding beyond legal crew-duty limits. Airport staff eventually off-loaded the travellers’ bags, and the flight departed half-empty—arriving in the UK 52 minutes late without them. (thesun.ie)
Spanish border officers blamed a shortage of biometric kiosks and the trial run for the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES), which becomes mandatory on 10 April. EES will require fingerprint and facial-image capture for all non-EU arrivals, including British holiday-makers and Irish residents who hold UK passports. Saturday’s fiasco is the second such incident this month at César Manrique Airport and raises fresh doubts about Spain’s readiness.
Before locking in flights, Irish travellers worried about documentation snags can run a quick check with VisaHQ. The platform’s Ireland portal (https://www.visahq.com/ireland/) tracks real-time visa and entry-rule updates worldwide and offers passport-renewal and courier services—handy for anyone who needs extra blank pages or last-minute guidance on Spain’s incoming EES requirements.
![Passport bottlenecks strand Ryanair passengers as EU Entry/Exit System dress-rehearsal turns chaotic]()
For Irish leisure and business travellers, the lesson is clear: arrive at Canaries airports at least three hours before departure and ensure passports have at least two blank pages for manual stamps until EES fully replaces them. Ryanair apologised but put the onus on AENA, Spain’s airport operator, saying higher fees should be invested in staffing.
The carrier’s combative CEO, Michael O’Leary, warned that chronic delays could see Ryanair shift capacity from Spain to “better-run” airports in Italy and Portugal this summer, a move that would shrink direct seat inventory for Irish tourists. Travel-management companies advise corporates to book flexible fares on Iberian routes for the next six weeks and budget extra time for connecting flights via Madrid or Barcelona.
EU officials in Brussels insist that once EES is live, automated gates will cut average processing times to 30 seconds, but national police unions in Spain and France say thousands of additional officers are still awaiting security clearance and training.
Spanish border officers blamed a shortage of biometric kiosks and the trial run for the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES), which becomes mandatory on 10 April. EES will require fingerprint and facial-image capture for all non-EU arrivals, including British holiday-makers and Irish residents who hold UK passports. Saturday’s fiasco is the second such incident this month at César Manrique Airport and raises fresh doubts about Spain’s readiness.
Before locking in flights, Irish travellers worried about documentation snags can run a quick check with VisaHQ. The platform’s Ireland portal (https://www.visahq.com/ireland/) tracks real-time visa and entry-rule updates worldwide and offers passport-renewal and courier services—handy for anyone who needs extra blank pages or last-minute guidance on Spain’s incoming EES requirements.
For Irish leisure and business travellers, the lesson is clear: arrive at Canaries airports at least three hours before departure and ensure passports have at least two blank pages for manual stamps until EES fully replaces them. Ryanair apologised but put the onus on AENA, Spain’s airport operator, saying higher fees should be invested in staffing.
The carrier’s combative CEO, Michael O’Leary, warned that chronic delays could see Ryanair shift capacity from Spain to “better-run” airports in Italy and Portugal this summer, a move that would shrink direct seat inventory for Irish tourists. Travel-management companies advise corporates to book flexible fares on Iberian routes for the next six weeks and budget extra time for connecting flights via Madrid or Barcelona.
EU officials in Brussels insist that once EES is live, automated gates will cut average processing times to 30 seconds, but national police unions in Spain and France say thousands of additional officers are still awaiting security clearance and training.
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