The Minister for Infrastructure and Housing said on Monday, 18th May, whilst speaking in Coimbra, that improvements to services at Lisbon Airport are expected next month following the completion of expansion works to the arrivals area.
Asked about delays recorded at border control in Portuguese airports, minister Miguel Pinto Luz said the Government “is making every effort, both with the [European] Commission and internally, to resolve the situation”.
Regarding infrastructure, the minister noted that works are nearing completion at Lisbon Airport, aimed at enlarging the arrivals zone.
“That is what we are working on, and we believe that in the coming weeks, within the next month, we will be able to deliver a better quality of service,” he stressed.
Miguel Pinto Luz acknowledged that the Entry/Exit System (EES) faces “real problems that are creating constraints” at airports and damaging Portugal’s “international image”.
“We are prepared […] whenever necessary, to suspend biometrics, because there is a basic principle: we cannot jeopardise the service provided by airports, nor the country’s image. Therefore, whenever congestion occurs or machines or servers fail to operate properly, the system will be suspended,” he added.
Border control at Lisbon’s Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport recorded waiting times of more than two hours over the past few days, the border department of the Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP) admitted, whilst rejecting reports suggesting queues lasting up to six hours.
According to the PSP, maximum waiting times on Sunday, with peak congestion between 09:00 and 12:00, “never exceeded 100 minutes in Faro, 110 minutes in Lisbon, and 130 minutes in Porto”.
In a statement released on Sunday evening, the police attributed the delays to technical and IT-related issues, as well as a “high volume of passengers arriving from outside the Schengen Area”.
The three main airports processed around 69,000 passengers arriving on flights from outside the Schengen zone, the force added.
Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of border control services amidst lengthy airport queues, warning that the Government may suspend the collection of biometric data if the situation persists.
“I do not hide the fact that the Government is dissatisfied with the response provided by border services at airports, particularly in Lisbon. We will pursue every possible effort, to the very limit, to overcome this situation,” he said.
Speaking during the inauguration of stabilisation works on the Moledo seawall in Caminha, a project costing €180,000, the prime minister assured that the Government would adopt tougher measures should circumstances require it.
Source: LUSA
