The promised maximum waiting time to get through Lisbon airport’s immigration control system is not being met with reports of two and three hour waits being widely reported.
Getting through the Aliens and Borders Service (SEF) has delayed thousands of visitors but SEF management says that there are only occasional cases where targeted processing times have been exceeded.
SEF’s front line employees say there simply are not enough staff to cope with an exponential influx of visitors.
Tour operators warned before the beginning of the summer that the obvious lack of staff will cause problems and with the start of summer schedules and new routes coming into Lisbon from the US, Canada, China, Togo and the Ivory Coast, passengers numbers are up 20% compared to this time last year.
"The situation is much worse," says Acácio Pereira, the president of the SEF workers union. At a debate in May, the chaos at Humberto Delgado airport was debated, with Francisco Calheiros of the Portuguese Tourism Confederation calling the situation "intolerable," adding now that "new staff have been recruited, but this is not producing satisfactory results" and that tourists are reacting badly, "No one likes to stay in the airport for two hours after a long and tiring trip. This is certainly not the best service for those who visit us."
Pereira says, "It is necessary urgently to take on 200 new inspectors to reinforce not only Lisbon airport, but also other sensitive areas such as criminal investigation."
SEF's management say they have taken on 45 trainees who have yet to completed the course, but according to the union, their presence is not enough because they are not fully trained and operational.
In January, Minister Constança Urbano de Sousa defined the "Strategic Objectives of the Ministry of Internal Administration 2017/2019" with one of the SEF's operational goals for 2017 being to process visitors within 40 minutes.
The SEF refutes the idea that delays and long queues now are standard. Since the beginning of the year, "there were only seven special occasions when the average waiting time exceeded two hours. There were many days where the average waiting time was less than 40 minutes."
Management has requested 200 new inspectors and is waiting authorisation from the Ministry of Finance.
