Another flight leaves passengers behind due to border delays

Ryanair passengers due to fly from Milan Bergamo to Manchester last week were left behind due to problems with passport control, the airline confirmed.

The introduction of the European digital border control system, known as the Entry-Exit System (EES), has been blamed for long delays at European airports.

“Had these passengers been at the boarding gate desk before the gate closed, they would have boarded this flight,” Ryanair said.

Earlier this month, EasyJet left passengers behind in similar incident Need to fly to Manchester is at Linate, another Milan airport.

The BBC watched video of the crowd forming in Bergamo, Milan; In this video, frustrated passengers tell staff they’ve been waiting at the gate for over an hour, asking “What are we going to do?” they asked. and said the information was “too slow.”

The EES requires non-EU citizens, including Britons, to record biometric information, including facial scans and fingerprints; This information can then be checked whenever they cross the European Schengen Area border.

The facility, which has been phased in since October, was planned to be fully operational on April 10.

However, in some parts of Europe its introduction was more successful than others.

Ryanair said: “Due to delays at passport control at Milan Bergamo Airport on 16 April, some passengers missed this flight from Milan to Manchester.”

According to a passenger’s statement, approximately 30 people were trapped. Ryanair did not say how many passengers were affected.

Milan Bergamo Airport has been contacted for comment.

EES is operated by the relevant border control authority in each country rather than by the airport or airline.

‘Complete chaos’

Adam Hassanjee, 18, from Bolton, was one of the passengers stranded in Italy.

“We had been waiting for an hour and a half and we weren’t moving,” he told the BBC.

“Then we see the plane taking off and we are told we have to go book our own return ticket.”

He said about 80 passengers, including people from four flights, were in the passport control queue.

“People who had flights later than us were passing us. Some were allowed to pass. There was complete chaos. No organization or staff cared,” he said.

Since there were no flights on the same day, he had to buy a flight ticket from Bergamo to Malta and then to Leeds.

The BBC has received complaints that a Ryanair flight was leaving people behind on the day the EES was supposed to open in all Schengen countries, but Ryanair has yet to confirm this to the BBC.

Peter Walker, 42, his two-year-old child and wife were left behind at Tenerife South airport on April 10 with “about 70 other people”, mostly young families.

Walker said the queue at passport control was “chaotic” due to EES checks and he and his family missed their flight for long periods of time.

Walker and his family were traveling to East Midlands airport but had to find an alternative route home, which cost £1,600 as the next available Ryanair flight was not until a week later.

He couldn’t wait until then because he was a teacher and had to go to school.

“There was no communication and no support from Ryanair. At no point was there anyone to reassure us or talk to us about options,” he said.

Despite speaking to Citizens Advice, she said this was not covered by her travel insurance policy and so she was unlikely to get a refund.

A European Commission spokesman told the BBC that the EES system “works very well”. It was stated that “no problems” were experienced in the overwhelming majority of EU member states.

But he acknowledged that there were “a number of member states where technical problems have been identified, as might be expected in the early days of any new system being fully operational”.

The aim of the system is to make borders safer and protect EU citizens, the Commission said.

It was stated that since the EES was implemented in October, more than 56 million border crossings have been recorded and 28,500 people have been denied entry, 700 of which were determined to pose a security threat.

Additional reporting by James Kelly and Faarea Masud.