Brits heading to Spain on holidays have been warned about getting caught up in major chaos at the airport.
Travel officials in the country have called for action after big queues formed at airports this weekend, reports Birmingham Mail.
More than 1,000 passengers were affected at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport when large queues formed at Terminal 1 and Terminal 4 for those trying to make connecting flights.
The president of ALA, the Spanish association of airlines, Javier Gándara, said that the situation was “completely unacceptable”, reports Majorca Daily Bulletin.
He demanded that the Ministry for Interior to take action so that the “necessary resources are available in all Spanish airports to handle the influx of tourists”, at the beginning of the summer season.
Spain is set to see a major influx of UK tourists in the coming months, after 13 million UK tourists travelled to the country last summer following travel-restricted lockdown years.
Mr Gándara warned that a lack of police at airports was making it hard for visitors to the country to catch their connecting flights on time.
He predicted that the spike in British tourists would lead to issues at other "tourist airports such as the Balearic and Canary Islands, Alicante and Malaga”.
“We are asking for the necessary resources to be put in place to be able to meet demand," Mr Gándara continued.
“It is the first perception that tourists who visit us have and that the image is of endless queues or missed connections and this is the last thing we need.”
Last year the Spanish holiday market really heated up following two years in which the pandemic heavily impacted the tourism industry in the country.
As with UK airports which struggled to hire staff quickly enough to deal with the rising demand, some Spanish travel hubs failed to fully deal with an influx of passengers.
Long queues formed at the airports of holiday hotspots including Majorca, Alicante and Malaga last June, in part due to the extra checks needed at passport control following Brexit.
UK holidaymakers are only allowed to remain in the Schengen area (a free movement area made up of 26 countries including Spain) for 90 out of 180 days.
Every passenger must get their passport inspected manually and date-stamped by police on arrival and departure, which can lengthen the process.
According to the Irish Mirror, other passengers from the EU flew through arrivals, leaving some Brits to claim they are getting “preferential treatment” with an “EU fast lane”.
Travellers shared pictures from Malaga Airport which had sectioned off two separate passport queues.
One was sealed off with black tape and signposted with a union jack for ‘all passengers’. The other was enclosed with green tape and shows an Irish tricolour and EU flag while labelled for ‘EU citizens’.
“Four hours queue in Malaga airport for non-EU passport holders, meanwhile everyone else walking on,” one person wrote on Twitter.
Another added: “We had a three-hour wait at Palma airport, with a very tired 4 year old in tow. ‘Other passports’ no line.”
The systems may be put under even more stress this year, due to a number of strikes that have hit Spanish airports over the past few months.
Some of Spain's busiest airports are currently facing industrial action by unionised workers at ground services and cargo handling company Swissport until Easter.
From 27 February to 13 April, they have called for a series of 24-hour walkouts every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday
