To find travel in Europe too stressful now with all the extra passport palaver

[Pavementworrier]

Why do all these new systems work so poorly? Who is getting rich on the stupid shit eye scanner things?

Please tell me soothing tales of recent visits to Europe where it was fine.

Ordinary people did have a say, just most of us are apparently fucking idiots. How did you vote at the referendum @Pavementworrier ? If you voted leave then you have no right to complain.

Everybody queues together in my experience. However, that may vary by airport.

I have never had to queue separately.

Oh ok. I’ve definitely stood in the ‘all others’ queues at European airports. But perhaps it’s just some of them.

It must be.

Since EU citizens don't have to use the EES kiosks, at the airports I've used recently there has been a separate queue for non-EU citizens. EU citizens don't queue for the kiosks (because they don't use them) - but they still have to queue for the manual checks after the kiosks.

I did not vote to leave the EU and I don't know anyone who did... I love that this is the only way you can conceptualise the idea of being annoyed about inefficiency, though. You can't change the past so try being less of a drag on the future.

I haven’t read every post on this thread but in case no one else has commented, I just wanted to say that I find your flippant comment about Franco here to be in poor taste. It’s very easy to forgot that until relatively recently, Spanish people were living under a dictatorship and the legacy of that still hangs heavily over society today.

Ok well I know Spanish people (older obviously) who still love Franco for some reason so there we are.

Well this is what the people voted for

Yeh I’m sure you’ll find a lot of Americans who like Trump, Germans who admire Hitler and Russians who like Putin but that doesn’t make it right.

I know a shitload of older Spaniards whose lives were devastated by Franco and a shitload of younger Spaniards whose lives have been shaped by the impact of his dictatorship on their families, not to mention the impact on culture and society even these days.

I’m not making political points here - just encouraging you to reconsider your flippancy.

Brexshit.

You get what you vote for.

People make jokes about Hitler having one ball all the time

I’m not going to waste any more time on this when your responses are so obtuse. I’ll retire from this discussion and let others continue to hand your arse to you on a plate.

i got an ETA on my German passport because i misunderstood "do you have another nationality" as "do you have another passport". I used it a few times with no issues, and a few chortles at passport control (France to UK by car ferry) but i don't want to get stuck when i need to be visiting my mum. So i reapplied for a UK passport, my old one was long lapsed, with no big issue.

I checked last time i went to UK and the British passport control told me i could use my UK one leaving Europe and my German one leaving UK. Which i did with no issues. So yeah, it is a bit annoying but not overly expensive amortised over 10 years. Your children get ETAs on their Finnish passports, or you get a UK passport for them too (first passports an utter PITA)

I just use my Irish passport in and out of UK. We havent been abroad since August last year, so DH will have this to look forward to. He has special assistance at airports so hopefully will be quicker

This is my family's experience too. No problems in Spain at all.

We only visit every few years so not worth the expense, and anyway I'm not sure I want to get them British passports as until they get them they don't technically have British citizenship and having British citizenship has its drawbacks (i can't work in certain jobs because of it) and these days seems like very little positives

The expense isn't so bad as the adult ones do last ten years but I hate all the hassle, hate filling out forms! Definitely too much hassle for children's first passports because of the counter signature thing (and not sure I want them to have them anyway)

that would be a shame. Just came back from the Canaries and it was no more hassle than using a supermarket checkout.

When I went to Prague it was chaos queued for around 45mins to do the scan the finger prints,face scan and passport etc. then joined another queue to get my passport stamped and face scanned again! Probably took a good 1.5hrs to get through. This was in Sept when they were trialling it on a Monday mid afternoon flight so not prime travel. I hope it’s improved somewhat

What a daft post. Of course British and EU citizens were in the same queue if it was pre Brexit.

Feck, I misunderstood your post @LadyGreySpillsTheTea. Everyone was in the same queue!

It seems very random. Some people waiting hours. My party literally can't do that so can't risk it.

Why not book assistance through the airport in that case? You sound very defeatist.

I queued longer to get a coffee and panini at Rome airport than I did to get through security and passport control. It was a very smooth, efficient process and the staff were lovely (unlike the coffee which was barely warm).