Ryanair Flight Leaves Dozens of UK Passengers Stranded at Athens Airport
Dozens of Ryanair passengers found themselves stranded at Athens International Airport on Sunday after their flight to London Luton departed without them. Between 20 and 50 passengers, many of whom became visibly agitated, were unable to board the flight following what the airline described as significant delays at border control.
This event marks the latest reported disruption since the implementation of the EU’s Entry Exit System (EES), designed to track the movements of non-EU citizens within the Schengen Area. While neither Ryanair nor Athens Airport directly attributed the incident to EES, the airport acknowledged "additional processing requirements" for non-Schengen bound passengers contributed to "periods of congestion at passport control".
Earlier promises from Greek tourism minister Olga Kefalogianni, suggesting British passengers would not face biometric checks or increased bureaucracy, appear to be contradicted by operational realities and subsequent disputes from the Greek Foreign Ministry regarding any such exemption. A travel writer who managed to board the flight described a "mega queue" of several hundred people at both security and passport control amidst high temperatures, with many arriving too late due to the bottlenecks.
Ryanair stated that "a number of passengers" did not board in time due to "delays caused by border control at Athens airport". The flight itself was reportedly an hour late after the luggage of the missing passengers had to be unloaded. This incident mirrors similar reports of substantial delays at other European airports, including Milan, where around 100 EasyJet passengers were stranded in April due to passport control queues.
