Spain’s Barcelona airport to require boarding passes to enter terminals

Spanish airport operator Aena has modified entry guidelines to Barcelona El Prat in a bid to enhance safety on the Catalan capital’s important airport.

Authorities wish to forestall homeless individuals from sleeping within the airport premises, in addition to prohibit entry to pickpockets, bag thieves, unlicensed drivers and unofficial bag wrappers.

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In order to entry the terminals, passengers will now want to indicate their e-tickets or paper boarding passes to non-public safety on the important entrances. Friends and household going to arrivals to choose up travellers will even should current proof of their contact’s boarding cross.

The airport operator has carried out checks at metro and prepare exits, and lowered the variety of entrances to the airport buildings.

The measure is a part of the brand new laws handed this earlier this 12 months throughout all Spanish airports managed by Aena.

According to newspaper La Vanguardia, a few of these measures have already been in place at Barcelona airport for the final three weeks, with many individuals required to current tickets whereas travelling over the lengthy December weekend already.

Security checks are additionally in place on the arrivals corridor of Terminal 1, the place individuals are being requested who they’re going to satisfy. 

These checks have additionally begun in Terminal 2, however much less continuously, as a result of decrease passenger quantity in comparison with Terminal 1. 

READ ALSO: How to keep away from getting robbed or pickpocketed at Spain’s airports

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Taxi and switch drivers have been amongst a number of the first to expertise these new management at arrivals, which requires them to current the consumer’s particulars and flight info, in addition to their taxi licence, earlier than they will go inside. 

Madrid’s Barajas airport has lately additionally seen a steep rise within the variety of unhoused individuals and beggars staying there in a single day, in addition to pickpockets, legal gangs and prostitutes.

Airport staff say they turned Barajas right into a ‘lawless metropolis’, with beggars sleeping in lifts or organising tents, litter increase in every single place, foul smells, deteriorating infrastructure and bathrooms being left in a pitiful state.

As a consequence, since May of this 12 months, safety guards there have additionally been asking passengers and relations for proof of journey to be allowed into the terminals. 

READ MORE: Madrid airport’s worsening homelessness downside

There’s been the same scenario going down at El Prat, therefore the brand new management measures. It’s estimated that round 100 individuals slept within the terminals each night time at Barcelona’s important airports. Some homeless individuals undergo from psychological issues, others from addictions, and authorities have to this point been unable to agree on what they should do to unravel the issue, with no specific physique desirous to take accountability. 

Other busy Spanish airports corresponding to Málaga’s and Palma de Mallorca’s are additionally going through safety and homelessness points, that means that it’s probably that they’ll quickly observe swimsuit and implement controls on the entrances. In truth, authorities at each airport have already entry to the airport at night time.

Though there isn’t any official knowledge on thefts particularly dedicated at airports, lately robberies have been reported sporadically at Barcelona El Prat, Madrid Barajas, Valencia, Alicante-Elche, Palma de Mallorca, and Tenerife airports, amongst others.

There was the case of two thieves at Barcelona’s El Prat who stole a suitcase which contained €8 million price of jewelry, two aged pickpockets who operated at Alicante’s airport dressed as holidaymakers, and a thief who specialised in stealing suitcases on airport buses in Gran Canaria.