Passport queues and what’s the point?
It’s a bank holiday weekend in Europe meaning the inevitable headlines about queues in key vacation spots are back again. I saw a tweet earlier with the halls in FAO full to bursting as U.K. passport holders have to queue to get stamps. This being exacerbated by eGates malfunctioning (it’s amazing how often this seems to happen in some spots?) and EU passport holders having to join the same lines.
I’ve never understood why some airports are better at this than others. Amsterdam and Palma comes to mind as a really painful experience for this reason.
The UK used to have a terrible reputation for immigration queues… but since the eGates have come in, this has by and large changed and it’s now very efficient at almost all times of the day.
So the question I ask is, what’s the point of all this? What is the threat of a tourist travelling to a holiday spot? Is this not an opportunity to make the travelling experience significantly easier?
During Covid many governments outsourced the compliance of testing and vaccine rules… is there any reason this couldn’t be done for passports in some occasions?
Every time someone is checked into a flight, passport information is logged on the system. I’m not an expert, but I assume this data is passed onto authorities in the receiving country. Everything is computerised. If there’s a threat, a “no fly” passenger or someone “of interest” to said country, surely this can be picked up prior to arrival or before departure. This system should also have the ability to track overstayers and other bad actors. There’s a theme here… computers!
What is the point of stamping a passport? Many countries do not use it, and if they do, they do it only on the way in. Again, computers are an amazing invention. My passport is now half full after 3 years of travel, even with extra pages.
I look to the US who require immigration and ESTA clearance even for passengers immediately connecting onto an international flight… why?
Some airports are now utilising biometrics in the departure process significantly speeding up boarding. Such facial recognition could (maybe already used) throughout the airport from entry to exit.
I’m not saying this is a one size fits all solution, clearly there’s a need for more stringent processes in higher risk scenarios but this is against the backdrop to try and reduce the inconvenience for the vast majority of low risk / good guys.