PakThomas

My wife and I got caught up in a mess when we returned from VCE on IB on June 27. We had two and a half hours to connect from terminal 4 to 4S and yet arrived at the gate five minutes before they started boarding our flight. The crowds prior to immigration were almost unbelievable. People were trying to crowd into the line and it got ugly. We hurried as fast as we could, but the distances are significant at MAD.

There were only one or two people directing the line, and they were doing very little to help. However, one of them did say that this had been going on for about a week. On the AA forum I noticed that someone posted a warning as well, including a photo (which looks a lot like one I took with my cell phone) and an article in Spanish that explains the problem.

PakThomas

I should add that according to the posts on the AA forum, the problem is ongoing.

Tilto007

I was there two weeks ago and you must give yourself at least 2 hours.We were travelling business class and 2 hours was barely enough to check in ,catch transfer train,go through immigration and get to the gate.

ajeleonard

The "official" cause is the introduction of more stringent ID checks imposed by the EU since April

Unofficially ineptitude or a deliberate go-slow by the border guards is more likely

It is getting decent coverage in the Spanish press

sunshinebob

Also at Malaga twice last month. Was 40 mins at 1am.

johnash

Here's the thread on the American Airlines forum. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ul-2017-a.html

It looks absolutely horrendous and, to be honest, I expected to find more about this on the Iberia forum, if it really is this bad!

We have always had good experiences passing through MAD.

flyerwma

Flew EAS-MAD-JFK this week and had same experience. EU exit at 4S was the hold-up. Only 2 stations open (one primarily for crew) and there was a long queue. The two guards that were working couldn't care less, and seemed to take every opportunity to go slower.

What I don't understand is why IB doesn't have someone at the queue either (a) getting priority for passengers of soon-to-depart flights or (b) communicating with passengers as to whether they are holding the flight for 15 mins or so. Passengers should know whether there's a chance or whether it's a lost cause. Once we cleared 4S we did our OJ Simpson imitation (the old OJ) to the end of the U gates, only to find out that they were holding the aircraft for other passengers behind us. Would have been nice to walk calmly at brisk pace rather than running like a crazy person.

susiesan

My connection time for IB flights VCE-MAD-ORD flight is only one hour at Madrid.
When IB made the schedule one hour must have been enough time but apparently is not now.

What do you do if you miss the TATL flight? Is IB accommodating people readily? Or do you have to fight for it. My trip is not until November. Perhaps IB will readjust their schedule if many people are missing connecting to the TATL flights.

Someone is already trolling for business to get you compensation for delayed flights:

https://www.claimflights.co.uk/airpo...arajas-airport

Yllanes

I wouldn't worry for now. These delays are partially due to the extra summer traffic and, even now, don't happen every day. I would bet that the situation will be better in November. Also, as reported above, in these cases the flight may be held for a bit, when they know there are passengers in this situation (especially if their bags are being loaded, because unloading them would take more time than waiting).

Tilto007

Correct they do hold the flights .Both my daughters flight and mine were held 30-45 mins to wait for passengers.We still arrived early.

flight

Yllanes

Just to give an update on this. I'm at MAD right now, I went through the passport control in T4S at about 10.30, which is peak time for long-haul flights. It took me 2 min 30 s and even for non-Europeans there seemed to be less than a 10 min wait.

In addition, the area has been organised with tensa barriers and clearly separated paths for EEA and non-EEA passports, as well as a dedicated path for urgent connections (to the right as you step off the escalator and around the elevators). I believe that, in previous weeks, much of the stress to travellers was caused by the messy crowd, rather than the length of the wait alone (Spaniards are used to "loosely organised" queues, but I can see how it can look a little daunting).

The IB lounge is, as can be expected given the reduction in size during the refurbishment, completely packed. I should have just gone to the AENA lounge, but I was curious.

LupineChemist

As a data point, I entered at T4S landing from DXB last Friday and was one of the first people off the plane and there was already quite a line for passport control and it moved pretty slow.

For most EU citizens, the electronic gates were working well enough with maybe a 5 minute wait. I waited for 10 minutes or so in the EU manned line (non-EU citizen with residence card) and the non-EU line was swamped. Looked to be at least 30-45 minutes. They did have an express connections line they would let people use if they had a tight connection.

All in all, I got the impression they're getting the hang of it, but the days of just casually passing through passport control most of the time may be at an end.

johnash

Thanks to both for the latest news from MAD.

I wonder how long the works at Velazquez lounge are going to take? We're not flying out till April next year from T4S so would hope they would be finished by then! But as we live in Spain, we know only too well that things can either happen frighteningly quickly or never get finished!