Welcome to June. And welcome also to any other reader named after a month of the year.
Let’s get started with something guaranteed to ruffle feathers.
The Greek Foreign Ministry has confirmed that UK passport holders will be subject to the same Entry/Exit System (EES) procedures as all other non-EU visitors, ending earlier assurances that Britons would be fast-tracked through border controls. [Greek City Times]
If you want it from ETIAS itself: Greece has scrapped its promise to spare British travellers from the European Union’s new biometric border checks. Brits will now face the same Entry/Exit System (EES) registration as every other non-EU visitor this summer. [ETIAS.com]
You can read the full stories by following those links, but it looks like it’s off again. This means there will be queues to get in and out of the country at peak times, which is basically from now until whenever. That is, unless you have a European passport or a biometric Greek residency card (which will only work in Greece, and not in other European countries). I’ve heard tell of travellers with UK passports and Greek biometric residency cards sailing through the EU channel at Greek airports and coming across thankful customs officers; thankful because it means there’s one less person in the swelling throng waiting in sweaty anticipation of missing their hotel pickup.
Good luck with that.
It’s put me in mind of the worst airports I have encountered in my limited travel career. I think I have a top three, starting, in third place, with Skiathos back in the 1980s. I remember the landing because it’s hard to forget at that airport, the runway being the length of the 100-yard dash. I think we were asked to put our feet through the floor and dig our heels in as the plane headed for the sea at the other end of the landing strip, and as we turned, I looked down, and I’m sure I could see fish. Getting off, we walked across the tarmac and followed a set of railings through an open-fronted tin hut where there were a couple of men at desks, and that was it. Free to be ‘at leisure’ for the rest of the holiday. Returning involved a three-hour wait in a building from where we could watch a new terminal being built, and another hour out in the baking heat, on the tarmac, repeating the tin-hut process and waiting at the crash barriers before finally boarding, flying for a few minutes and then enduring a refuelling wait for over an hour at Athens. Not doing that again.
In second place must come Southend International Airport in the 1990s. I was supposed to be flying from City Airport to Dublin with Virgin, but the City was fogbound, so we were driven out to Southend. Well, to a field nearby that might have once been used for bombing raids in WWII, and which had been used for growing mangelwurzels ever since. It was downhill, which helped with picking up speed over the tufts of grass and (possibly) small animals, and it was all so antique, it was almost charming. (It’s a lot better now. Toilets and everything.)
But in first place, I give you the palace of delights which was Abu Simbel Airshack, circa 1987. We’d flown down from Luxor on an Air Sinai rust bucket that was leaking something from underneath as we climbed the ladder to board. ‘Breakfast’ for the 45-minute trip was two pieces of bread glued together with some kind of indiscernible spread, and a glass of water no-one risked. Again, arriving was easy enough, but waiting for the trip back later… It was around midday by then, the sun was a relentless 45° outside, so we had to wait inside where there was no air conditioning, and there enjoy the non-negotiable sauna. When we were finally sent to board into the searing heat of the desert, the release came as a relief. I just had a look, and the airport is also now much improved, I am pleased to say. Anyway, I thought I’d start the month off with that cheery news and some cheery pictures of the courtyard as an antidote. There’s nothing you can do about the queues when you arrive except prepare for them, allow for them in your planning, and stay calm. You’ll get here in the end.
