Passport 'mega queue' strands Ryanair passengers in Greece

Passport 'mega queue' strands Ryanair passengers 1 hour agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleEwan SomervilleKaren Alarcon Cabada/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesPassport control queues at Athens airport this weekRyanair passengers were stranded in Greece after their UK-bound flight left without them as airports grapple with passport control delays.The flight from Athens International Airport to London Luton on Sunday reportedly left without 20 to 50 passengers, some of whom became visibly angry, prompting airport authorities to step in, the BBC has been told.It is the latest incident since the EU's Entry Exit System (EES) was brought in to track when non-EU citizens enter or leave the Schengen free movement area.Ryanair blamed border delays, while the airport said it had been experiencing congestion linked to "additional processing requirements", though neither directly said EES was responsible.In April, Greek tourism minister Olga Kefalogianni promised British passengers would not face biometric checks or be "burdened" by bureaucracy when travelling to Greece this summer.But the situation is unclear after the Greek Foreign Ministry later disputed that any exemption existed.Milo Boyd, a Daily Mirror travel writer who managed to board Sunday's Ryanair flight to Luton, said he had not had his fingerprints scanned or his photo taken on entry or exit at Athens.He told the BBC there had been a "mega queue" of several hundred people at both security and passport control amid stifling temperatures.'You can't do this'He and his wife made it through 10 minutes before the gate closed, but he said at least 20 others had arrived too late."These poor people were pleading with the Ryanair staff to let them through - one guy was crying, another guy looked like he was about to explode," Boyd said. Boyd said people stuck on the other side of the gate were shouting "you can't do this" and "this is yo...