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Arrived BA today with UK passport As before nearly 2 hours to clear passport control – Social Media Chatter is saying the new agreement via PM Starmer have not and will not improve things until the ‘EU ESTA process’ in Oct 2025 will improve things perhaps – Has PM won anything new ? Do Portugal care that I will not be booking any more trips with family nor golf trips as I am fed up with waiting 2 hours to pass through Passport control…I’ll go elsewhere….If you are travelling with kids especially Be Warned – Faro in my last 3 trips this year is 2 hrs wait unless you have the right passport – E Gates were empty ! Feel free to google or check tik tok for recent queues there…its beyond me that Portugal do not realise this is bad for them too….
Was it bad in the EU line too or just non-EU? Had a flight from Africa landed just ahead of yours by chance?
The agreement is in place but it allows EU nations to decide whether individual nations permit e-gate use for UK passport holders.
And they were never just going to be turned on the moment the ink was dry. The agreement is for as soon as possible.
And no Portugal won’t care one iota about you going elsewhere.
It’s all a bit ridiculous and purely political. The excuse of the 90 days and stamps is just a distraction. Australia, Albania and Serbia (and probably many others) all allow UK passport holders to use e-gates. At Nice one now uses the e-gates, then goes to a desk for a stamp, but queues are minimal.
I think it’s very much down to timing. We arrived at Malaga at 4pm today and there was only our flight. There were only 2 staffed booths but we were straight through passport control, there was no advantage even bothering with the EU one.
I’m sure it was a very different story late morning when the LCCs were arriving.
@JDB, totally agree, we used e-gates at MEX in December!I get it, it is all political, but frankly the Portuguese authorities are well within their rights to do what they want. As are the UK authorities.
At the end of the day, even with these queues, record numbers are visiting the country and buying up property and locals don’t see it subsiding anytime soon.
I get it, it is all political, but frankly the Portuguese authorities are well within their rights to do what they want. As are the UK authorities.
At the end of the day, even with these queues, record numbers are visiting the country and buying up property and locals don’t see it subsiding anytime soon.
Yes, of course the authorities are entitled to do what they want, but frankly why be so petty vs British people?
That pettiness which is apparently creating these unacceptably long queues, the record number of visitors and foreigners buying up property all feel like great reasons to travel to other countries more welcoming of Brits that are also not so over-touristed and increasingly expensive.
Portugal has allowed UK passport holders to use egates for several years now, including in Faro.
If you had kids with you, you could have gone to the priority lane. Same applies to any queue you might see in the country by the way. If there is no priority lane (supermarkets mostly removed them eg) you can just make your way to the front of the queue, including entering the airplane on your back if you want to push the airline to comply with local laws.I get it, it is all political, but frankly the Portuguese authorities are well within their rights to do what they want. As are the UK authorities.
At the end of the day, even with these queues, record numbers are visiting the country and buying up property and locals don’t see it subsiding anytime soon.
Yes, of course the authorities are entitled to do what they want, but frankly why be so petty vs British people?
That pettiness which is apparently creating these unacceptably long queues, the record number of visitors and foreigners buying up property all feel like great reasons to travel to other countries more welcoming of Brits that are also not so over-touristed and increasingly expensive.
Why not be difficult? It is not petty it is the authorities controlling their borders the way they want too. It’s not just to British residents. They’re doing it to those from the USA too and Brazil (+others), all visiting in record numbers. As a Brit it is my view that Brits shouldn’t feel so entitled to get express access through the border.
Portugal isn’t over touristed. Far from it. Lots and lots of places undiscovered. Thankfully. I really hope it will stay that way. I have been to Portugal 25+ times (thanks to my OH being from there) and travelled top to bottom and across many of its islands, and have never been to Faro or its airport and only spent one day in the Algarve. You’re visiting the wrong places if you think it is over touristed.
The country and its residents do not care one jot if Brits and others don’t visit again or have a bad experience in its queues.
They care enough that they were the first country to allow Brits to use egates after Brexit.
They care enough that they were the first country to allow Brits to use egates after Brexit.
Brexit was years ago. Times have moved on significantly since then in Portugal. Politically, economically and socially.
Lmao
It’s whereabouts you go as well; the Algarve has never appealed to me but we’ve visited northern Portugal several times. Apart from in Porto you can go for days without encountering another Brit, even in the height of summer. OPO itself has been quite busy on the 2 occasions we’ve used it but across the border in Spain Vigo and Santiago de Compostela see much less traffic.
Travelling to very popular destinations in school holidays is always going to be a bit of a nightmare!
Social Media Chatter is saying the new agreement via PM Starmer have not and will not improve things until the ‘EU ESTA process’ in Oct 2025
Good old social media. The EU stated it quite clearly on the same day the PM made his bold claims. They also said it was up to each member state to decide if they would allow it.
I commented on this in the main threads at that time and was wondering how they would achieve it when fingerprinting was required. It turns out that the fingerprinting will be done before boarding your transport to the EU which will then potentially simplify the process on arrival.
“Portugal to deploy 500 new border officers to airports in July…
The 500 recruits currently in training are expected to be fully operational by July…
14 to 20 officers from other parts of the country have already been redirected to Faro to ease pressure and “immediately respond to operational needs”.
https://www.portugalresident.com/portugal-to-deploy-500-new-border-officers-to-airports-in-july/
I passed through Faro recently (on a domestic flight) and I could see the extra tent building they had added in expectation of queues. The queues at immigration to leave the country looked bad but not terrible. I was surprised by how busy that airport was in terms of flights.
No problems in Lisbon when I arrived but others I met said they’d queued for a few hours. I could see very long queues to get in when I departed.
E-gates were available.
It’s not targeted at any nationality, it’s just a lack of capacity that cannot keep up with the demand.
We were straight through immigration at AGP at 4pm yesterday but family have just landed this morning with about 8 other flights so unless they’ve opened more than the 2 kiosks that they had staffed yesterday then it’s going to be a similar situation. I know people like to get to their holiday destination as early as possible but if you’ve got the flexibility it definitely pays to pick a less busy time to arrive if at all possible.
I did an article on yesterday’ forum to say that we sailed through FAO on Wednesday evening as all gates were manned. The issue is that when they only choose to man a couple of kiosks is that the queue gets so bad that you can’t even get down the steps into the immigration hall so U.K., E.U or special needs, you all stuck.
As reported above the surge capacity plastic tent is being readied for summer. If it doesn’t have A/C then it will be hell in summer.
Wierdly we have only seen the eGates open a few times ever. We know they work as we have used them. A passport officer waiting at the end of the process to give your passport a stamp. They currently aren’t even open for EU citizens.
You couldn’t make up the excuses they were giving in The Portugal News (newspaper) last week about their checks covering the purpose of visit, conditions of stay, xchecking against various databases and means of subsistence. I’m pretty sure that’s what all countries do .
There are e gates at OPO and they have never been working the many many times I have travelled through that airport.
I have also had the pleasure of speaking to border officers from other countries manning the EU counters at OPO… including Scandi countries – with officers not being able to speak a word of Portuguese. Clearly other European countries “lending” their officers during the quieter months.
As has been mentioned above, it is a capacity issue. Portugal is a tiny country (by population) in Europe and it is incredibly popular with tourists from and an immigrant population spread all over the world. They are just prioritising where they spend their money and dedicate their resources, and how they want to control inflow and outflow in to the country.
If it is any consolation, no normal person in Portugal is getting worked up about this. It’s just the MSM and social media doing its thing…
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