Dozens of British travellers had their holidays end in expensive misery after they got stuck in passport queues at Copenhagen Airport, leading them to miss their Ryanair flight home.
Passport control chaos at Copenhagen
Travelers who arrived at Copenhagen Airport in what they thought was plenty of time on Tuesday, August 18, soon found themselves stuck in long queues. An "extraordinary operational issue" at the airport meant normal capacity was slashed, leaving passengers facing a particularly long wait to get through passport control.
The lines were so long that 54 of the 179 people due to board one Ryanair flight alone did not make it. The budget airline closed boarding and unloaded the late passengers' bags from the hold. The flight then took off for London Stansted 39 minutes after the scheduled departure.
Passengers forced to watch bags removed
As with passengers denied boarding a flight from Athens to London Stansted in May, the procedure was particularly frustrating as not only were the queues out of their control, but the removal of their bags from the plane delayed the service - a process they were forced to watch metres away from the plane as it sat on the tarmac. When boarding is closed, a legal report of the manifest is signed and sent to the captain. After that point, boarding cannot be legally reopened, even if passengers are present and the plane's doors are open.
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: "Due to delays at passport control at Copenhagen Airport (18 Aug), a number of passengers booked to travel from Copenhagen to London Stansted were not at the boarding gate when boarding for their flight closed and missed their flight from Copenhagen to London Stansted. All passengers that were at the boarding gate when this flight from Copenhagen to London Stansted boarded, travelled without incident."
Water leak caused the delays
The delay at Copenhagen Airport was not due to the new Entry/Exit System, which requires passengers to scan their passports, faces and fingers when entering and exiting EU countries, but a leak. A spokesperson for the airport said: "The longer queues at passport control on Tuesday afternoon were caused by an extraordinary operational issue and were not related to the EES system. On Tuesday afternoon, an unfortunate water leak occurred in a server room connected to the passport control area in Pier E, one of the airport's two passport control facilities. As a result, all passengers had to pass through passport control in Pier C for the remainder of the day."
The airport spokesperson added: "When half of the available passport control capacity is taken out of operation, longer waiting times are unfortunately unavoidable. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this caused our passengers. Passengers were informed about the additional waiting times via public announcements, and we deployed additional customer service staff in Pier C to provide guidance and assist passengers whose flights were close to departure."
The spokesperson also said: "Airlines and ground handling companies were informed about the situation. Whether to delay a departure in order to wait for passengers is a decision for each individual airline. We would therefore recommend contacting Ryanair directly regarding flight FR7381." Both passport control facilities were reopened by the police on Wednesday morning and are now operating at full capacity again.
