UK tourists have taken to TikTok to complain about “chaotic” scenes on arrival at a Tenerife airport, with holidaymakers from the EU warned of queues breaking out.
Content creators flying from the UK to Spain were shocked by how long they had to wait, with one Briton fuming: “Just came back today and half the plane was empty due to people being stuck in the queue,” adding: “Absolute joke”.
Another said their travelling group was “fortunate enough last Friday to get through just before our plane left. What happens if you don’t get through on time? How do you arrange another flight, and do you have to pay?” Birmingham Live reported.
A third disgruntled flier said: “We had this a few weeks ago. Stood in that queue for an hour and a half.”
However, others said they hadn’t experienced any issues and that it wasn’t typical to see long lines.
Another wrote: “This must depend on the time of your flight. I flew home yesterday and we were the only people there. Maybe 40 minutes or so before our flight boarded.”
Aena, a state-owned firm that owns and operates Tenerife South and North, has been approached for comment via email.
Last November, visitors to the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands were warned they faced long waits at passport control. Tourism leaders on the island said the issues were caused in part by Brexit.
They called for urgent action to tackle queues at Tenerife South Airport, the island’s largest airport.
Jorge Marichal, president of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodations, said that the airport was starting to become “quite tiresome”, claiming it provided poor first impression to visitors.
“This lousy image as the main gateway, both for visitors and for our own residents,” he claimed, adding that residents “deserve a 21st-century facility”.
Tenerife continues to be a hugely popular destination among British holidaymakers, and UK visitors were the most important tourism source market for the island in 2022, as per Statista.
That year, nearly 2.3 million British tourists visited the island, roughly triple the number of Spanish tourists from the mainland.