Originally Posted by
elsenor
Interesting experience and something to consider if you are traveling on a Sunday through FCO.
T3 -> T1 was a bit of a sh*tshow. The facial recognition/auto passport machines to the left were not operating, forcing everyone into the queue. When I arrived, there were only 3 officers. Every few minutes, someone would ask the roaming attendant about their flight leaving soon, where she would either put them to the front or send them into the queue. A particular passenger started yelling in Italian to the officers and without even speaking Italian could tell it was something like "why arent there more booths open, we also have flights to catch, we keep getting skipped over, ...?!" They went back and forth until the officer left his booth to come talk to the passenger. It was the first time I thought I'd see someone fight / get arrested at passport control. I jokingly asked if there was going to be an English translation and a woman explained what I thought but added the officer said, "what do you expect? It's Sunday, nobody works on Sunday." Not until I was about 10 people away from the front did an officer open the auto machines and a mass exodus left the queue for them.
Hahahah, I wish I could tell you that this was unusual, but it isn't. My favorite experience is still from back around 2015, standing in the EU passport control line (with a toddler, so no e-gates for us), with one agent checking passports. He was doing his best, but can only go so fast. But the reason this is a fond memory is that in true Italian form, every single old Italian person in the line (which was basically everyone except us), stopped to complain at him for a minute after processing. It took me back to my childhood where I occasionally went with my grandmother to the Italian consulate for the annual error in her pension. The agent took it in stride. And also in true Italian form, the non-EU line was about 2x the length when this all started, but was completely empty before we were half way through, because they had 3 booths open on that side. Those agents sat idle, rather than processing EU pax.
Real talk, though: How deep was the line to get into the smoking booths in T1? How many people waiting outside of it already had a cigarette in their mouth anxiously awaiting entry?