Queues at Faro airport cause passengers to miss their flight

At Faro Airport, queues were a problem for some tourists at the weekend. On Saturday it was in  queues in passport control, for travellers who do not belong to the Schengen area. On Sunday, it was the wait to do their Covid-19 tests at the airport, before travelling. 

Passengers suffered long waits, some missing their flights, when queues at the two Covid testing stations at Faro Airport caused them not to have their negative test result in time to board their flight. For those who had planned ahead and were taking their test within 72 hours of their journey, returningto the airport on their day of travel rather than testing immediately before their flight, the wait was inconvenient but not as distressing.

There are more than 160 laboratories in the Algarve to carry out the Covd tests, this information is being passed on to many tourists.

The problem on Sunday was in the covid test zones, on Saturday, it was the queues registered in the passport control area. With almost 8,000 passengers arriving from outside the Schengen area, the passport control officers were unable to keep up with the demand, with only three control boxes and a fourth working intermittently between 16:00 and 17:00. Some people arriving waited nearly three hours to pass through passport control.

Original article available in Portuguese at http://postal.pt/