Portugal plans special lanes for Britons in airports after Brexit

[vikkimoog]

www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/17/portugal-plans-special-lanes-for-britons-in-its-airports-after-brexit

I missed this at the time.
I guess it makes sense when so much of their economy relies on tourism.
Also, Spain said ages ago there would be no change for tourists / expats even with a no deal. Wonder if they'll have fast track too
just seen Portugal is doing the same as Spain re. not making life at all difficult for British people who have moved there

I would suspect that they would still let us use the EU gates for now.

If you come back into the UK via Heathrow at least, other countries besides the EU, EEA and Switzerland can use the fast gates - it looks like Australia, NZ, Canada and those of a couple of countries whose flags I didn't recognise.

Talking of Spain and Portugal not making life difficult, it could easily be the British Government which makes the difficulties. For example, they don't uprate state pensions to UK citizens living in Canada; they do at present for the EU countries. They might stop this - we don't know, it will be in the 'to be negotiated' pile. Ditto paying for health care. I could easily see if the UK insists on EU citizens paying for health care the Spaniards could reciprocate. Another one on the pile.

Just interesting that so many people said the likes of Spain and Portugal would introduce visas etc. and the gloating about ex pats who voted leave would now be screwed.
seems like good news/ news that shows brexit won't screw everybody is kept very quiet

vikkimoog, the only answer at present is that we don't know, because we are still in a Transition period. I am pretty sure that they will do what is advantageous for them. I am also quite sure that Spain would be quite happy to make it more difficult for the hen and stag parties.

perigrina
we do know as that's what they have announced.
As to stopping hen and stag parties, benidorm/ lloret de Mar would be on their knees.
No way would that happen ( and logistically how would they stop groups of unrelated people travelling?)

Gosh, the threads that aren't all doom and gloom don't get much traffic, do they

Well this is certainly news my friend who voted remain will want to know. She applied for an Irish passport, as in her own words the queues will be longer and they might not let us in with our British passports.

There is an awful lot to resolve, but it would make sense if the likes of Spain and Portugal could make travel into their country as smooth as possible. I guess this is possibly a way forwards, individual arrangements with individual countries over certain things.

Interesting to see how it pans out.

Talking of Spain and Portugal not making life difficult, it could easily be the British Government which makes the difficulties.

I think this is the key thing really. I've lived in Spain and I would like to move back, so I would be happy if there's positive news regarding post-Brexit life/travel there. But it was never the EU countries 'making things difficult' in the first place, it's the UK government that's so desperate to take away my Freedom of Movement, not Spain or Portugal.

Why is it good news that Portugal won't make life difficult for british visitors? i mean why on earth would they?
Plenty of non EU citizens visit europe! and the UK isn't insisting on tourist visas for EU nationals.
That Portugal can decide for itself on what to do in regard to uk immigrants there or uk visitors, does show that the eu doesn't make anyone's laws!

A more recent article than the one posted:
www.theportugalnews.com/news/brexit-impact-on-portugal-is-unavoidable/51878

In short - they will maintain the status quo. This is good, but we were told that Brexit would bring us benefits. I don't see how the status quo (for now) is a bonus.

It will probably make logistical sense for many airports to have a lane that is not specifically "for Brits", but instead for "non-EU citizens with a Schengen visa waiver". In practice at Faro or Alicante that's going to mean pretty much exclusively Brits, but at Madrid or Amsterdam it would also cover Americans, Canadians, etc.

The point being that from 2021, UK passport holders will probably have to have an ETIAS (electronic pre-travel authorisation, like the American ESTA) to travel to a Schengen country. So those admissions will take longer, on average, than waving through the Portuguese and other EU citizens who just arrived on same the plane from the UK at the non-Schengen part of the terminal. (Flights that arrive from another Schengen country deliver their passengers to the domestic flights side of the airport - there simply is no passport control going from, say, Germany to Portugal.)

So those admissions will take longer, on average, than waving through the Portuguese and other EU citizens who just arrived on same the plane from the UK at the non-Schengen part of the terminal

Do you think? They scan everyone's passports, they don't just waive you through, so I suspect it will take 1-2 seconds longer to see that that particular passport has an ETIAS associated with it and hand back the passport and away you go. Occasionally I've been asked where I've flown in from (not sure why as their computer must tell them that) but that's it.

if you fly from uk (=non-schengen) to another EU country, then you need to go through passport control.
from schengen to schengen there is no passport control apart from the airline passport check.
Ireland might be an exception.

They scan everyone's passports, they don't just waive you through, so I suspect it will take 1-2 seconds longer to see that that particular passport has an ETIAS associated with it and hand back the passport and away you go

1 or 2 sec's is a bit optimistic! don't passports also need to be stamped? so say 20 seconds. so every 180 people is an extra 60 mins.
So, halve that to 10sec's, a plane full of tourists will take around an hour extra.... how many planes land at Palma per day?
When new restrictions were put in place throughout europe following the Paris attacks, delays at places like Palma were in the hours.

So unless the europeans (not just Portugal) put in more booths then expect significant delays, but brexit is about going back in time, so maybe we'll travel less? drop the numbers down to a few million wealthy tourists p.a. (as per 1970s) from the 70million who currently travel from the UK.

drop the numbers down to a few million wealthy tourists p.a. (as per 1970s) from the 70million who currently travel from the UK.

Surely this would help the environment?

I'm sure certain Portuguese airports won't restrict short term hen/stag parties- until the local town halls do! 😊