Majorca enables e-gates for UK visitors

Majorca has jumped the gun with the use of e-gates for British travellers as the island gears up for the upcoming busy summer season.
Palma Airport, one of Europe’s busiest tourist gateway, has become a model of efficiency with queues for UK visitors, both in and out, being significantly reduced.
Arriving passengers present their passports at the row of e-gates and once approved walk over to the immigration desk to have them stamped as required under the Schengen rules. But with the detailed examination already completed remotely, this takes just seconds.
It’s a similar story on the way out – an e-gate check and then a quick stamping of the passport.
“It’s quite remarkable and barely publicised. Easier and quicker than normal” said one London-based holidaymaker.
This comes as Faro in Portugal announces a similar scheme and the government has indicated that e-gates will be available for British travellers probably from next Autumn.
It’s a plan which can’t come fast enough for many British travellers who have been stuck in lengthy queues to enter EU countries – at Tenerife there haven reports of visitors needing hospital treatment as they wait for up to an hour to get through a notoriously slow passport control.