British passengers ‘pass out’ in hours-long border check queues at Milan airport
Holidaymakers were left vomiting and fainting in a queue from hell at Milan airport.
Around 100 easyJet customers were stranded at Linate airport on Sunday because of delays caused by new border checks in the EU.
The airline said the chaos was ‘outside of our control’ and even delayed take off by 52 minutes to try give passengers extra time to get on board.
Dozens of Britons were left scrambling to find alternative journeys home after some only discovered they had missed their flight once it had taken off without them.
One passenger, Kiera, 17, said that only 30 people made it onto the plane while 100 didn’t.
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The Oldham local, who faced a 20 hour wait for an alternative flight, told the BBC: ‘We got here at 7.30am for our flight at 11am so were super early.
‘We got to Border Control and it was a massive queue of people. I wasn’t feeling great anyway because I think I’d got food poisoning.
‘At about 10.50am they brought some water over for people, and when we got to the front of the queue someone asked us if we were going to Manchester, and told us our flight had just gone.’
The new return journey had cost her mother £520 and that they would be going to Gatwick, not Manchester.
Kiera said easyJet had only offered £12.25 in compensation.
Adam Lomas, 33, an accountant from Wakefield, became stranded with his wife Katy, 31, and their four-month-old daughter.
The dad was sat in the airport for hours and that when he tried to contact easyJet he was faced with ‘chatbots’ and ‘audio issues’.
He told the BBC: ‘The airport and easyJet have spent hours arguing with each other about who is to blame.’
Adam said his family were forced to find a new hotel and book flights back to London, before then needing a to get a two-and-a-half-hour train to Manchester.
Easyjet called the delays caused by the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) ‘unacceptable’.
The new system requires passengers from third-party countries, including the UK, have to have their fingerprints and photographs taken as they enter the Schengen Area.
EES registration is replacing the system of manually stamping passports and the UK government warned it might take longer for passengers to complete.
What are the EU’s new EES border check requirements?
The European Union’s new Entry-Exit System, known as the EES, will connect every crossing point in the Schengen Area.
Every EU country in the Schengen area will be connected, other than Ireland and Cyprus, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.
Travellers will be required to hand over biometric data such as their fingerprints and a photo scanned with facial recognition technology.
The system aims to crack down on crime and enforce the limit on EU stays for British and third-country citizens, which is 90 days within any 180 days.
Most travellers from outside the EU, known as third-country nationals, will be required to register their passport details and biometric data when crossing into an EU country for the first time.
Biometric data includes fingerprints and facial pictures. Borders are likely to be kitted with self-service kiosks where passengers can input this information.
This data, as well as the entry and exit details, will be stored for subsequent visits.
Future visits will only require a verification of the biometric data, which can speed up the process.
Children are not exempt from the checks, although children under 12 do not need to give fingerprints; however they will also need to have their face scanned.
The system became fully operational on April 10 and caused travel chaos across last weekend.
A spokesman for easyJet said: ‘We are aware that some passengers departing from Milan Linate today experienced longer than usual waiting times at passport control and we advised customers due to fly to allow additional time to make their way through the airport.
‘We have been doing all possible to minimise the impact of the airport queues, holding flights to allow customers extra time and providing free flight transfers for any customers who may have missed their flight including EJU5420 to Manchester.
‘We continue to urge border authorities to ensure they make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while European Entry / Exit System is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays for our customers.
‘While this is outside of our control, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused.’
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