With Easter traffic still surging and the EU’s Entry/Exit System only two weeks old, British passengers have reported waits of up to three hours at Palma, Madrid-Barajas and Málaga airports. Airport operator AENA has now authorised frontline staff to divert families and passengers with reduced mobility to legacy passport-stamping booths whenever biometric-kiosk queues exceed 25 minutes. Internal instructions also allow slot-coordination teams to stagger arrivals during peak periods—an approach first piloted in Málaga last weekend. Although the measures fall short of Greece’s temporary suspension of EES, they mark Spain’s first significant operational tweak to the EU-mandated system.
![AENA Deploys Contingency Measures as EES Queues Hit Three Hours at Major Airports]()
For travellers looking to avoid documentation hiccups amid these evolving border formalities, VisaHQ can step in to streamline the process. Its Spain-dedicated portal (https://www.visahq.com/spain/) offers up-to-date entry guidance, digital application support and courier services, helping passengers arrive prepared and potentially shave precious minutes off airport processing times.
Industry groups, including ABTA, welcome the steps but warn that staff shortages could persist through the summer season unless border-guard head-counts increase. Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary has publicly called the rollout a “shambles” and is tightening airport check-in cut-off times to compensate for unpredictable queues. Corporate travel managers should check real-time queue data (now published every 30 minutes on AENA’s website) and build longer connection buffers for intra-Schengen flights that originate in Spain. Travellers who have not yet completed an EES registration are advised to arrive at least three hours before departure until the new workflow stabilises.
For travellers looking to avoid documentation hiccups amid these evolving border formalities, VisaHQ can step in to streamline the process. Its Spain-dedicated portal (https://www.visahq.com/spain/) offers up-to-date entry guidance, digital application support and courier services, helping passengers arrive prepared and potentially shave precious minutes off airport processing times.
Industry groups, including ABTA, welcome the steps but warn that staff shortages could persist through the summer season unless border-guard head-counts increase. Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary has publicly called the rollout a “shambles” and is tightening airport check-in cut-off times to compensate for unpredictable queues. Corporate travel managers should check real-time queue data (now published every 30 minutes on AENA’s website) and build longer connection buffers for intra-Schengen flights that originate in Spain. Travellers who have not yet completed an EES registration are advised to arrive at least three hours before departure until the new workflow stabilises.
