Spain holiday warning as fears Brits will ‘boycott resorts’
HOTELIERS and transport leaders in Majorca are demanding more airport police before British tourists boycott the island in favour of other holiday destinations.
They say the congestion and delays at Son Sant Joan are now so bad that the airport is in real danger of collapse.
The Spanish government is being urged to bring in reinforcements with urgency rather than wait for "Operation Summer" to swing into action in July.
The congestion problems have plagued Palma airport since the start of May following the resurgence of tourism and the relaxation of coronavirus regulations.
Hoteliers have been protesting for the last few weeks and now the Unified Police Union in the Balearic Islands has joined the complaints.
It has criticised the "great delays" and queues at the border controls of Son Sant Joan, leading to "the continuous delay in collecting luggage and the arrival of tourists to their hotels".
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The union claims police officers don't want to come to work in the Balearic Islands because they don't get enough money to cope with the insular location and higher cost of living on the islands.
“The big losers from the lack of police are the citizens and tourists,” says the union.
Majorcan hoteliers and transport leaders say anything that has a negative impact on the tourist image, more so in a season as competitive as the current one, "is going to be decisive."
And the police union says if it wasn't for the work carried out by the police personnel stationed at Palma " the airport would collapse."
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They are demanding that the Spanish administration "put all the necessary means to correct the problems that have been detected in the customs controls, which especially affect British tourists."
"The airport authority AENA is trying to streamline all operational processes as much as possible but for this, passport controls must have a greater number of police to speed up procedures," they say.
Tourists have already been complaining about the huge queues and lack of social distancing.
One Brit posted: "It's going to be a nightmare this summer at the airport if its going to be like this!”
Another said: "Even if you go in plenty of time to the airport, you can find hundreds of people waiting without being able to advance."
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Sun-starved Brits are jetting off to Majorca in their hundreds as the number of tourists holidaying in Magaluf has surged back to pre-Covid levels.
It's not just Majorca Airport with the queues though - as many as 3,000 passengers missed their flights at Madrid Airport over the Easter break.
