To ask for your Easter holiday airport stories - new passport control system/strikes/fuel chaos or pretty chill?

[CurdinHenry]

I stayed at home because I was scared but hope dozens of people are now going to tell me it was all ok

Sounds like that airport hasn’t got the system properly up and running yet. I regularly travel to Murcia in Spain and on the last 2 visits went straight to the egate, scanned passport, fingerprints and photo taken. Gate opened and I had entered the country. No passport stamp, no interaction with the desk, no need to use the separate machines for registration again. Just straight to pick up case and out. Was in the taxi 15 minutes from stepping off the plane. Hopefully all airports will get to that stage soon.

The total absence of instructions or coherent rules is insane. Airports are obsessed with systems but can't actually run them.

That said I've heard Greece is the place to go for the foreseeable!

I guess they've been burned by the EU once too often

The other problem was that the tech needed a couple of goes to get it working properly. For example,
machine wouldn’t read my fingerprints the first time - had to redo while the guard said “okay, try putting them straighter. How about a bit closer together”. With DH and one of the DC the photo didn’t capture properly so they got called back for a retake. If you multiply those extra attempts by the number of people in the line you get a lot of extra waiting time.

We had problems like that at airports in 2 countries so it is not limited to one airport being rubbish.