Joe Duggan (Reporter)
MALLORCA’S Son Sant Joan airport is set for its busiest ever day this week.
A record-breaking 190,000 passengers are due to land or take off from the Balearic Island this Saturday.
Meanwhile, a top airline official branded images of British tourists queuing for hours at immigration desks overseas as ‘shameful’, with some travellers stuck in four-hour-long queues.
Thomas Reynaert, managing director of the airlines’ association A4E, said: “Airports like Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Lisbon, Lyon, Paris-Orly, Milan or Brussels are producing shameful pictures of devastated passengers in front of immigration booths, in lines stretching hundreds of metres.”
On Sunday, British passengers at Palma in Mallorca queued for 90 minutes, with the new Schengen EU regulation on passport checks being blamed for the delays.
Next Saturday, 1,117 flights are due to pass through Palma airport, with the planes carrying the equivalent of the population of cities like San Sebastia or Coruna.
“From June to September we have more flights than Madrid and Barcelona,” said airport official Antoni Planells.
This summer, 18% more Germans have flown to the island, with a 14% increase in British visitors and 5% more Spaniards.
