Border Booth Bottlenecks Strand Travellers in Portugal as Ryanair Lashes Out

Anyone flying into or out of Portugal this month has probably felt the same squeeze: an unexpectedly slow shuffle through passport control that can upend even the best-planned itinerary. The hold-ups have already cost more than 120 people their flights and sparked a very public row between Ryanair and the Portuguese authorities, just as the country’s tourism bonanza hits full stride.

Summer bottleneck at the border

Holiday traffic is cresting at Lisbon, Porto and Faro, yet the queuing areas look anything but high-season ready. Travellers arriving from non-Schengen countries report waits that stretch beyond 90 minutes, while some outbound passengers never make it to the gate at all. The choke point is almost always the same: an under-staffed border booth or a shiny new e-gate that suddenly switches to manual mode. Airport operator ANA insists the physical space can handle the surge, but concedes that the controlo de fronteira remains the State’s responsibility.

Ryanair turns up the heat

Europe’s largest low-cost carrier chose the busiest weekend of July to issue a sharp rebuke. The airline says that between 11 and 13 July more than 120 of its customers missed flights from Portugal’s three main mainland airports because they were still penned inside the immigration hall. A spokesperson warned that, without “immediate measures”, the same scenario will keep replaying through August. Ryanair’s criticism lands at a delicate moment for Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, whose minority government is already under pressure to prove it can keep the peak-season machine running.

A high-tech fix that back-fired

Much of the frustration circles back to a biometric system rolled out in May as a precursor to the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES). The kiosks promise paper-free stamping and sub-20-second checks, and at Faro those promises appear to hold; local police say queues there have actually shortened. At Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport, however, officers quietly admit the software is “quase inoperacional.” Each time a gate freezes, passengers are redirected to traditional desks, compounding delays and highlighting the shortage of trained officers.

Government’s two-pronged response

Infrastructure minister Miguel Pinto Luz told parliament last month that the teething pains would be gone “within two weeks.” Instead, MPs fast-tracked legislation creating the new Unidade Nacional de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras inside the PSP police force, folding in tasks once handled by the disbanded SEF. Meanwhile 500 rookie officers are finishing basic training, with a first wave already dispatched to airports. Officials also extended expired residence permits to 15 October 2025, hoping to prevent in-terminal backlogs for renewal appointments.

What this means for foreign residents and visitors

For expats living in Portugal, the delays carry concrete risks. Connecting flights with less than 90 minutes of buffer now look reckless. Property owners who rent out holiday homes could face disgruntled guests held up in the terminal. And anyone awaiting relatives on a visto de procura de trabalho will need to factor in extra screening time as the government tightens entry rules. Travel insurers are fielding more claims linked to missed departures; several policies require proof that you arrived at the airport three hours early, something worth double-checking before your next long-haul trip.

The horizon beyond peak season

Brussels still expects every Schengen airport to activate the EES by October. That means another learning curve—and potentially another round of slow-moving lines—when the system starts capturing fingerprints and facial scans from all third-country nationals. Lisbon’s airport authority says the current upheaval is a “pre-season stress test” that will pay dividends later. Ryanair is less sanguine; its legal team is already studying whether compensation claims could be pursued against the Portuguese state rather than the airline. For now, the best advice is disarmingly simple: arrive early, stay patient, and keep your boarding pass within easy reach. The summer of 2025 may go down as the year Portugal learned—sometimes the hard way—how to blend sunshine tourism with next-generation border tech.