Travelers Brace for Lisbon Airport Delays: Police Protests & Tech Glitches

Holiday-season travellers heading through Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport may want to pack extra patience. A four-hour police union meeting on Thursday morning disrupted some passport lines and signalled a winter of further protests unless the Government honours a pay-and-conditions deal struck last year. With separate technical failures in the new Entry/Exit System (EES) already pushing waits beyond six hours, two crises are converging at Portugal’s busiest gateway just as Christmas traffic peaks.

At-a-Glance: What passengers in Portugal should know

• Passport control queues could stretch well past the usual limits during peak departures and arrivals.

• The ASPP/PSP union accuses the Government of shelving a July 2024 agreement on salary scales, risk allowances and career progression.

• A temporary reinforcement of 80 additional officers starts this weekend, but the union says "there are no booths or floor space" to host them.

• Authorities may switch off the EES biometric system case-by-case over Christmas if software glitches persist.

• Travellers are being advised to reach the terminal at least three hours before European flights and four hours for long-haul departures.

Why another protest now?

The Association of Professional Police Officers (ASPP) gathered between 07:00 and 11:00 inside the airport’s Esquadra de Controlo e Fronteira, effectively removing dozens of officers from the front line. Their leader, Paulo Santos, says rank-and-file agents feel "systematically devalued" and that the Government is building a "low-cost police model" in the wake of the 2023 dissolution of the Immigration and Borders Service (SEF). December’s plenary followed a similar action in November and came with a promise: “Expect more in 2026 if nothing changes.”

The broken July 2024 accord

Police negotiators left the table in frustration this autumn, claiming the Interior Ministry had failed to deliver on three pillars:

Revised pay tables bringing border officers in line with detectives at the Polícia Judiciária.

A mission-risk allowance recognising round-the-clock passport work.

A new performance assessment decree that was meant to fast-track promotions.

Santos argues that without those measures the transfer of border duties from the extinct SEF to the National Foreigners and Borders Unit (UNEF) amounted to "changing the badge, not the conditions."

Crowds, kiosks and a shaky digital frontier

Even on days without protests, Humberto Delgado’s border hall has looked more like a festival queue. Since its October launch, the EES biometric kiosks—designed to speed up checks for third-country nationals—have suffered software outages, causing repeated resets by technicians. On 16 December, passengers reported three-hour bottlenecks; a day later some waited the full six. The Interior Minister conceded in Parliament that the situation is "damaging the country’s image and economy."

When too many officers still isn’t enough space

Extra personnel alone cannot fix a layout built for pre-pandemic traffic. ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal has been criticised for failing to install new booths or widen corridors. "You can put eighty more officers on the roster, but they will be standing shoulder to shoulder," one ASPP delegate noted. The airport’s long-planned satellite terminal and rail link remain on the drawing board, leaving immigration desks squeezed between duty-free shops and baggage belts.

Lessons from Europe’s smarter terminals

Elsewhere on the continent, airports in Geneva, Athens and Munich have tackled surging passenger numbers by combining modular extensions, people-flow analytics and self-service passport gates. Experts say Lisbon could borrow three quick wins:

• Replace static counters with reconfigurable islands that expand at peak times.

• Introduce real-time queue dashboards so supervisors can redeploy staff.

• Accelerate the roll-out of kiosk pre-enrolment to cut first-time EES interactions in half.

What travellers can do right now

Portugal’s tourism board and airlines are urging passengers to act as though they were "travelling during a strike":

• Arrive extra early; mornings before 08:00 and late evenings after 22:00 remain busiest.

• Use mobile check-in and drop bags the night before when possible.

• Carry snacks and water—catering outlets are beyond passport control.

• Monitor ANA’s real-time dashboard and airlines’ push notifications.

The road—or runway—ahead

Government sources say talks with the ASPP could resume in January, but the union first wants "concrete dates, not fresh promises" for the July 2024 commitments. If no breakthrough emerges, more targeted stoppages could hit the February ski-holiday rush. Meanwhile, a multi-agency task-force is studying whether to suspend EES during the busiest holiday windows. For now, the message to residents and visitors alike is simple: factor in delays or risk missing your flight until Portugal’s border burps are fixed for good.