After denying the problems that passport control is causing in the main airports in Spain, the Ministry of the Interior has reported that it will incorporate 500 more police officers in the twelve largest Spanish airports. These reinforcements will be distributed in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Alicante, Tenerife South, Menorca, Palma, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria. They will become effective as of July 20, according to police sources.
Most of these agents, around 60%, are fresh out of the Ávila academy and, therefore, this will be their first assignment. Among these 500 agents, 189 will be assigned to the Madrid-Barajas airport, one of the airports that is having the most problems in the controls. Another 89 police officers will go to El Prat and another 50 to Palma de Mallorca.
Thus, from the Interior it ensures that the figures given by Iberia, which reported that between March and May 15,000 passengers lost their connecting flight due to the collapse of police filters, do not adjust to reality while the same sources rejected that there is congestion for Brexit.
This is the first year that UK citizens are considered non-EU nationals and therefore must pass the mandatory passport control.
In 2019, the border control of the airports that are going to be reinforced had, according to police data, 1,456 agents, which have currently been reduced to 1,226, but with the expansion planned for this month they will remain at more than 1,700 effective.
Interior insists on denying any situation of collapse at the airports. He speaks, yes, of “specific” delays but assures that neither the National Police nor Aena has registered “no complaint neither from passengers nor from airlines” for this reason.
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