Can government avoid Christmas chaos at Portugal’s airports?

The Government has no backup plan for possible Christmas and New Year chaos at Portugal’s airports

However, Portugal’s Minister for Internal Administration said on Friday in Parliament that the Government would come up with a contingency plan “over the next few days”.

The plan, said Maria Lúcia Amaral, was to try and avoid or better control the huge queues that have plagued departures and arrivals at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado International Airport in recent months and argued that controls should not be suspended over the festive season.

“We are working on and considering a contingency plan to implement in the coming days,” taking into account the current disruptions at Lisbon airport, said the Minister of Internal Affairs, who had an audition with the parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, on Tuesday.

At the hearing the minister admitted that “yes, things have gone very badly” at Portugal’s airports, but said that problems could not be “solved from one day to the next”.

The minister also denied that the problems were “exclusively down to the Public Security Police (PSP), and the National Unit for Foreigners & Borders (UNEF).

“The introduction of these rules at airports have gone very badly,” said Maria Lúcia Amaral in parliament, adding that at Lisbon airport there have been average waiting times of three hours – and in recent days “they have reached six hours.”

“I do not deny the responsibility of the PSP (Public Security Police) and the UNEF (National Unit for Foreigners and Borders) in this, but I refuse to accept that it is the exclusive responsibility of the PSP. Things are more complex than that,” she added.

In addition to the PSP (Public Security Police), the new system also involves the Internal Security System – which controls the computer systems and the equipment that supports them – ANA Aeroportos de Portugal (the Portuguese airport authority), which manages the airports, as well as having contracts with private entities to ensure the equipment works and staff and passengers known how to use it. The suggestion was that incompetence, system incompatibilities or IT glitches could also be to blame.

The minister stressed that the problems “cannot be resolved from one day to the next” (or from one month to another) but ‘hopes’ that the situation will be “sorted by April 2026!”

“Christmas is right around the corner and this (contingency) should already be in place”, said Portuguese MP, Nuno Fazenda, an opinion also shared by Rui Rocha (Liberal Initiative- IL MP).

The Internal Security System (ISS), responsible for managing border control, told Lusa that the possibility of the European border control system for non-EU citizens being suspended during Christmas was under evaluation. ​

The decision “will be made according to the information that arrives from the Portuguese airports,” it said in response to the agency.

Sources: ECO/Lusa

Image: INÁCIO ROSA/LUSA
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© 2010 LUSA – Agência de Notícias de Portugal, S.A.