The bigger news here is that: a) you can only do these checks after you've checked-in and dropped off your baggage b) Airlines often open check-in only a few hours before the flight leaves c)...
The bigger news here is that:
a) you can only do these checks after you've checked-in and dropped off your baggage
b) Airlines often open check-in only a few hours before the flight leaves
c) travellers insurance won't cover delays brought on by this system
Seems like this situation really is just here to shaft people.
Flying is so miserable, this makes it even more so. I can’t understand how air travel still has so much demand when it sucks so much. Nevermind the environmental issues is creates.
Flying is so miserable, this makes it even more so. I can’t understand how air travel still has so much demand when it sucks so much. Nevermind the environmental issues is creates.
I would agree with you, except that I've not found a better way. I live in Germany, my family lives in the UK. There are plenty of rail routes to get there, but they all have different flaws. It's...
I would agree with you, except that I've not found a better way. I live in Germany, my family lives in the UK. There are plenty of rail routes to get there, but they all have different flaws.
It's a near 24hr journey by train, which means either staying the night somewhere en route, or taking overnight transport.
Night trains are expensive and often aren't great for actually sleeping. I find it okay, and my wife and I have done this option a few times, but now we've got a baby it's no longer an option.
There is a night ferry option, but getting to the ferry terminal is weirdly difficult by public transport, making the journey longer and requiring several more changes. We'd also end up in the wrong part of the UK, requiring more changes on the UK side.
We have done the option of staying a night somewhere along the way, but it bumps the cost up and is more complicated to plan.
All of these options mean we get to the UK a day later and would need to leave a day earlier, meaning less time to actually spend with my family.
All of these options are several times more expensive than flying.
All of these options require booking with at least three different providers (DB, Eurostar, and the UK rail system), coordinating times, and making sure there's enough buffer because too much delay will void the rest of our journey.
Meanwhile, a direct train to the nearest airport and a cheap Ryanair flight is simple, cheap, and gets us there fairly quickly. It sucks, but, like, not that much, comparatively speaking. I'm happy to endure a couple of hours of discomfort if it saves me several hours of complication and discomfort elsewhere.
Every time we make this trip (which has been several times this year alone due to illness), I desperately try and look for any other option, but I haven't found a reasonable route yet. When our kid is a bit older, we'll probably go back to the night train for at least one of the journeys, but for now that's out for various reasons.
Domestically in the US and Canada, our trains suck more. Internationally, it’s the only realistic way to get to travel outside your home continent for those in the Americas or Oceania, and even a...
I can’t understand how air travel still has so much demand when it sucks so much.
Domestically in the US and Canada, our trains suck more. Internationally, it’s the only realistic way to get to travel outside your home continent for those in the Americas or Oceania, and even a lot of people in Eurasia and Africa (though there are definitely some ferries between southern Europe/northern Africa and trains between Eastern Europe/Western Asia).
I’m 6’4” and it’s genuinely miserable flying more than an hour or two if I don’t pay for extra leg room but at the same time, aviation is such a cool thing that humans have invented and made travel something that is actually possible for most people (in developed/global north countries).
I was coming from my personal point of view. I don’t need to fly to visit family. I fly for leisure. Because flying sucks so much, I don’t go on international vacations anymore. There is plenty to...
I was coming from my personal point of view. I don’t need to fly to visit family. I fly for leisure. Because flying sucks so much, I don’t go on international vacations anymore. There is plenty to do locally or within 1/2 to 1 day drive and that’s what I choose now. Just the idea of stepping into a plane again fills me with dread.
Well, I enjoy traveling by airplane, even long haul, even apparently being in the 99th percentile of height globally. Waiting in the airport sucks, but flying itself is great, in my opinion. I...
Well, I enjoy traveling by airplane, even long haul, even apparently being in the 99th percentile of height globally. Waiting in the airport sucks, but flying itself is great, in my opinion. I wish I could do it more often.
I’ve been through Lisbon airport a few times in the last few months (thankfully didn’t hit delays of the magnitude mentioned in the article, at least) and they’ve gone a step further by designing...
I’ve been through Lisbon airport a few times in the last few months (thankfully didn’t hit delays of the magnitude mentioned in the article, at least) and they’ve gone a step further by designing the whole place as check in->security->food / lounges / shopping / seating->immigration->gates.
If you know it’s coming and if you get through check in and security with time to spare, you’re left with the option of getting a snack and somewhere to sit but risking a missed flight if the immigration queue balloons while you’re sitting there, or going through immigration immediately and then being stuck hungry and hot with nowhere to sit at the gate for a few hours if it’s quick that day.
If you don’t know it’s coming, which is pretty easy to miss given that exit immigration isn’t globally standard and the vast majority of other airports in the world don’t spring a surprise multi-hour queue on you in the corridor to the gates, you probably stopped to chill in the central area just like you would at every other airport and then missed your flight when the gate was called. As my friend did recently.
Aaaaand if the airport doesn’t put the gate number for your flight up until even closer to departure, and you don’t have a detailed map of this specific airport confirming whether all possible gates are connected on the post-immigration side or not (I think they are, but I actually couldn’t tell you that with certainty…) the timeline gets even tighter.
It’s such bad design that it’s honestly almost funny. It looks like it’s gonna be this way for the long term, because they were installing a whole bunch more e-gates in the same place when I passed through last week (which should at least help with the congestion). And it could so easily be fixed by putting immigration immediately after security, with a simple boarding pass check for Schengen-destination flights to skip the immigration bit. It’s genuinely weird they’ve done it this way, because it’s gonna piss off all those food and retail places paying top dollar for space on the wrong side of immigration, and it’s otherwise actually quite a pleasant airport to be in, as far as airports go.
This rollout has been so incredibly bad and rife with technical issues. It's so bad that planes are leaving without half of their passengers. These are passengers that entered security as soon as...
This rollout has been so incredibly bad and rife with technical issues. It's so bad that planes are leaving without half of their passengers. These are passengers that entered security as soon as they were allowed to.
In my opinion the result is that the EU is effectively closed to visitors.
Yes, some airports have temporarily suspended the system and some aren't suffering as badly (my experience boarding the Eurostar in Paris was that it took around an hour to clear security which is excessive but didn't cause the train to leave empty) but why would anyone sensible risk travelling into the EU for a holiday now?
Travellers to the EU have faced additional border security checks since the launch of the digital entry and exit system (EES) last October.
The new system means that most non-EU citizens, including those from the UK, have to register their biometric information at the border. The checks are causing huge delays and airlines and airports are calling for it to be suspended during the peak summer holiday period, saying some flights are leaving half full and passengers are facing queues of up to five hours.
I wonder if you did the hedonic calculus weighing the time wasted, the flights missed, the undesired crotch inspections etc. against the harm caused by terrorists and hijackers could the math end...
I wonder if you did the hedonic calculus weighing the time wasted, the flights missed, the undesired crotch inspections etc. against the harm caused by terrorists and hijackers could the math end up showing that airport security is overall the greater of two evils?
Airport security is security theatre, and a source of income for some businesses. Nothing more, nothing less. Have a look at this list & see that it doesn’t really do anything. But when it comes...
Airport security is security theatre, and a source of income for some businesses. Nothing more, nothing less. Have a look at this list & see that it doesn’t really do anything.
But when it comes to this entry & exit system, it has less to do with hijackings & more with tracking immigrants who may not leave the EU once entered.
Almost definitely. Same way evacuating Fukushima was worse than telling people to stay would have been. But you also can’t trust large groups of people to be rational about these things - I can’t...
Almost definitely. Same way evacuating Fukushima was worse than telling people to stay would have been. But you also can’t trust large groups of people to be rational about these things - I can’t even trust myself to be rational 100% of the time, hard as I try - so I don’t really know where that leaves us…
Are these delays going to the EU or coming back? It's unclear. I did notice going through Madrid Barajas airport, Spain to UK trip, the other day that the post-security, passport queue system is...
Are these delays going to the EU or coming back? It's unclear.
I did notice going through Madrid Barajas airport, Spain to UK trip, the other day that the post-security, passport queue system is almost incomprehensible. The people manning the queue entrance had no idea for slightly edge cases - they shrugged when I asked which queue to use for myself (British passport with residence card) and family (Spanish passport holders). They have one side for EU which is quick and uses electronic gates and the other side is kiosks with police border guards manually checking paperwork in the usual randomly efficient way. Sometimes it takes seconds, sometimes several nerve-wracking minutes.
Say what you like about the UK ETA system, but getting through Gatwick was incredibly quick for us all. In the past we've had to queue for ages but now it's all scanned and through in seconds.
I am dreading the return leg in a few weeks. Hope it's not too bad.
I forgot to say that on the return leg, the system in Spain was fine. I have a Spanish permanent resident's card, so I didn't have to go through the full 3rd country system. Our group had me with...
I forgot to say that on the return leg, the system in Spain was fine. I have a Spanish permanent resident's card, so I didn't have to go through the full 3rd country system. Our group had me with that document, and others with Spanish passports. We went down the non-EU route, but were split off before the new machines to the regular old passport guard posts they've always had, with virtually no queue.
The bigger news here is that:
a) you can only do these checks after you've checked-in and dropped off your baggage
b) Airlines often open check-in only a few hours before the flight leaves
c) travellers insurance won't cover delays brought on by this system
Seems like this situation really is just here to shaft people.
Flying is so miserable, this makes it even more so. I can’t understand how air travel still has so much demand when it sucks so much. Nevermind the environmental issues is creates.
I would agree with you, except that I've not found a better way. I live in Germany, my family lives in the UK. There are plenty of rail routes to get there, but they all have different flaws.
Meanwhile, a direct train to the nearest airport and a cheap Ryanair flight is simple, cheap, and gets us there fairly quickly. It sucks, but, like, not that much, comparatively speaking. I'm happy to endure a couple of hours of discomfort if it saves me several hours of complication and discomfort elsewhere.
Every time we make this trip (which has been several times this year alone due to illness), I desperately try and look for any other option, but I haven't found a reasonable route yet. When our kid is a bit older, we'll probably go back to the night train for at least one of the journeys, but for now that's out for various reasons.
Domestically in the US and Canada, our trains suck more. Internationally, it’s the only realistic way to get to travel outside your home continent for those in the Americas or Oceania, and even a lot of people in Eurasia and Africa (though there are definitely some ferries between southern Europe/northern Africa and trains between Eastern Europe/Western Asia).
I’m 6’4” and it’s genuinely miserable flying more than an hour or two if I don’t pay for extra leg room but at the same time, aviation is such a cool thing that humans have invented and made travel something that is actually possible for most people (in developed/global north countries).
The only option more miserable than flying is usually every other option.
I was coming from my personal point of view. I don’t need to fly to visit family. I fly for leisure. Because flying sucks so much, I don’t go on international vacations anymore. There is plenty to do locally or within 1/2 to 1 day drive and that’s what I choose now. Just the idea of stepping into a plane again fills me with dread.
Well, I enjoy traveling by airplane, even long haul, even apparently being in the 99th percentile of height globally. Waiting in the airport sucks, but flying itself is great, in my opinion. I wish I could do it more often.
Whenever I’m stuck on the runway waiting to travel 2500 miles I cope by reminding myself it’s still faster than walking.
I’ve been through Lisbon airport a few times in the last few months (thankfully didn’t hit delays of the magnitude mentioned in the article, at least) and they’ve gone a step further by designing the whole place as check in->security->food / lounges / shopping / seating->immigration->gates.
If you know it’s coming and if you get through check in and security with time to spare, you’re left with the option of getting a snack and somewhere to sit but risking a missed flight if the immigration queue balloons while you’re sitting there, or going through immigration immediately and then being stuck hungry and hot with nowhere to sit at the gate for a few hours if it’s quick that day.
If you don’t know it’s coming, which is pretty easy to miss given that exit immigration isn’t globally standard and the vast majority of other airports in the world don’t spring a surprise multi-hour queue on you in the corridor to the gates, you probably stopped to chill in the central area just like you would at every other airport and then missed your flight when the gate was called. As my friend did recently.
Aaaaand if the airport doesn’t put the gate number for your flight up until even closer to departure, and you don’t have a detailed map of this specific airport confirming whether all possible gates are connected on the post-immigration side or not (I think they are, but I actually couldn’t tell you that with certainty…) the timeline gets even tighter.
It’s such bad design that it’s honestly almost funny. It looks like it’s gonna be this way for the long term, because they were installing a whole bunch more e-gates in the same place when I passed through last week (which should at least help with the congestion). And it could so easily be fixed by putting immigration immediately after security, with a simple boarding pass check for Schengen-destination flights to skip the immigration bit. It’s genuinely weird they’ve done it this way, because it’s gonna piss off all those food and retail places paying top dollar for space on the wrong side of immigration, and it’s otherwise actually quite a pleasant airport to be in, as far as airports go.
[Edit] Clarity
This rollout has been so incredibly bad and rife with technical issues. It's so bad that planes are leaving without half of their passengers. These are passengers that entered security as soon as they were allowed to.
In my opinion the result is that the EU is effectively closed to visitors.
Yes, some airports have temporarily suspended the system and some aren't suffering as badly (my experience boarding the Eurostar in Paris was that it took around an hour to clear security which is excessive but didn't cause the train to leave empty) but why would anyone sensible risk travelling into the EU for a holiday now?
I wonder if you did the hedonic calculus weighing the time wasted, the flights missed, the undesired crotch inspections etc. against the harm caused by terrorists and hijackers could the math end up showing that airport security is overall the greater of two evils?
Airport security is security theatre, and a source of income for some businesses. Nothing more, nothing less. Have a look at this list & see that it doesn’t really do anything.
But when it comes to this entry & exit system, it has less to do with hijackings & more with tracking immigrants who may not leave the EU once entered.
Almost definitely. Same way evacuating Fukushima was worse than telling people to stay would have been. But you also can’t trust large groups of people to be rational about these things - I can’t even trust myself to be rational 100% of the time, hard as I try - so I don’t really know where that leaves us…
Are these delays going to the EU or coming back? It's unclear.
I did notice going through Madrid Barajas airport, Spain to UK trip, the other day that the post-security, passport queue system is almost incomprehensible. The people manning the queue entrance had no idea for slightly edge cases - they shrugged when I asked which queue to use for myself (British passport with residence card) and family (Spanish passport holders). They have one side for EU which is quick and uses electronic gates and the other side is kiosks with police border guards manually checking paperwork in the usual randomly efficient way. Sometimes it takes seconds, sometimes several nerve-wracking minutes.
Say what you like about the UK ETA system, but getting through Gatwick was incredibly quick for us all. In the past we've had to queue for ages but now it's all scanned and through in seconds.
I am dreading the return leg in a few weeks. Hope it's not too bad.
I forgot to say that on the return leg, the system in Spain was fine. I have a Spanish permanent resident's card, so I didn't have to go through the full 3rd country system. Our group had me with that document, and others with Spanish passports. We went down the non-EU route, but were split off before the new machines to the regular old passport guard posts they've always had, with virtually no queue.