The creation of a new European border as a consequence of Brexit worries not only British airports, but also Spanish ones. The long lines and the bottleneck effect will be frequent in airports such as Gran Canaria, where the Civil Guard has only 18 agents and a scanner to check all baggage on all non-EU flights arriving on the island.
At the moment, the situation is “manageable”, but the Canary Islands intends to recover the 5 million British tourists annually visiting the islands before the pandemic and the Unified Association of Civil Guards (AUGC) warns that if the personnel assigned to this task does not increase, the situation at the airports will be of “collapse”.
According to information from Canary 7, the AUGC calls on the Ministries of the Interior and Transport an increase of 300 agents throughout the Canary Islands for this function, in order to avoid waiting for tourists “4 or 5 hours until their suitcase passes the control”, in addition to all that this would cause: bus queues outside the facilities, delays at the entrance of hotels, etc.
Specifically, the AUGC requests the following staff increases:
- Gran Canaria: Go from 18 agents to 100.
- Tenerife South: Go from 26 agents to 100.
- Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Tenerife North: 30 personnel for each airport.
- La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro: At these airports, the function is currently performed by urban security guards. The AUGC requests the presence of 5 Civil Guards on each island.
–
