Border delays leave dozens of Ryanair passengers stranded in Lanzarote

Dozens of passengers travelling with Ryanair were left behind at Lanzarote Airport after lengthy queues at border control prevented them from reaching their departure gate in time.

Eighty-nine passengers booked on flight FR4756 to Bristol were reportedly stuck in non-European Union (EU) lines awaiting passport checks. The airline held the aircraft for around an hour but ultimately departed without dozens of customers, offloading their checked baggage before takeoff. The flight arrived in Bristol approximately 50 minutes behind schedule.

In a statement, the carrier said: “Due to passport control delays at Lanzarote Airport a number of passengers missed this flight from Lanzarote to Bristol.” It added: “Should these passengers have presented at the boarding gate desk before it closed, they would have boarded this flight.”

Local media have highlighted repeated congestion at Lanzarote in recent months, attributing delays to staff shortages at border control. José Valle, President of Lanzarote’s Chamber of Commerce, has previously warned of “serious collapses” at the airport ahead of the full rollout of the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES).

The EES, currently being implemented across the Schengen area, requires non-EU travellers to register biometric data, replacing manual passport stamping. Industry bodies including Airports Council International Europe have cautioned that insufficient staffing and infrastructure could lead to disruption during the transition, particularly at busy leisure gateways such as the Canary Islands.

Just last week, travel across Italy was disrupted as air and rail strikes impacted schedules and connections.