Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

Not directly related to EES/ETIAS but as the introduction of these is undoubtably putting pressure on the Immigration staff at the border, it may be time to relay this cautionary tale.....

Entered Spain through Santiago de Compostela in mid October. I use wheelchair assistance which has previously always been amazing at S de C. On this occasion there were three of us in wheelchairs, one with an accompanying spouse, one with spouse & child, and me. The Immigration official at S de C insisted that one "pusher" collect up all six passports and hand them over together. He then handed them back one at a time to the Assistance Team as they took us through. I just stuffed mine back in my pocket when my "pusher" handed it to me, thought no more about it till I checked in to depart 5 days later.
I mean, who looks at their passport while they're relaxing in a friend's home for 5 days?

The check-in lady then totally floored me as I handed my passport over and she said "Errrrr you are Pollyana or Estrella?" Rather confused I looked at the passport I had just given her, it was a totally different woman. Only common factor was that it was a UK passport for a female. Eventually we worked out Immigration had given Estrella and I each other's passports :eek: Even though the guy held up each one as we went through and allegedly checked our faces against the photos!

Long story short, I travelled back to Heathrow on my Australian one - which clearly bore no entry stamp, but this was not queried when the Exit Immigration guy stamped the exit on it :eek: Estrella had already been proved to be travelling the following day, & had the same shock as me at check-in when she found the passport she had was actually mine.
The airport police, who had taken her passport from me for "safe-keeping" had unbelievably just stuffed it under the keyboard of the check-in person I'd been dealing with - who was of course by then off-shift and the new lady knew nothing about it, but found it at the last minute before Estrella missed her flight. She hung on to mine thank heavens after we chatted on the phone, brought it home, and I got it back from her over this weekend.

Moral of this rambling tale is - if you hand your passport to ANYONE while travelling, when it is handed back to you make sure its yours! Even if that person has just squinted at you to (allegedly) check your photo.
One can only imagine the kind of chaos that will result when they start on photos/fingerprints if they are already having issues like this with just passports........

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

Yes and residents who are required to stay in Spain for certain periods of time, NLV holders for example.

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

I flew out of Málaga to the UK and back again 3 days later last week, but the new EES machines weren't used in either direction. I have read that it will be early next year before they will be in use for all flights in Spain.

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

The deadline for full implementation is next April - EES will be phased in across all entry points.

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

I don't believe that latter will actually be the case.

Firstly, resident permit holders are exempt from using the EES, so their comings and goings shouldn't be recorded in the system. And secondly, EES only applies at external Schengen borders, so any absences from Spain that don't involve crossing one of those also wouldn't be recorded in it (or anywhere else, come to that).

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

Yes .... my oversight on that one ...... Residence visa compliance is tracked in other ways.

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

That's quite a horror story, ending up with someone else's passport. Luckily you had another one you could switch to! :lightbulb:

I was actually going to post a question that pretty much coincides with what you had to do, albeit for entirely different reasons. I'm planning on doing a UK passport renewal for my daughter at the beginning of December as we will be in transit with a few days' stopover in the UK. So the plan is to post the passport (and supporting docs) from a UK passport office and then fly out to Spain on a different passport and wait there until it arrives.

The problem is that we might be travelling via the UK again 2 weeks later, but we won't know until we get back to Spain from the first trip (otherwise I'd do the renewal during the second trip). Did you have any issues using your Australian passport to enter the UK... when you are also a UK citizen? Did you have to purchase the UK ETA?

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

I was so lucky to have been carrying the Aus one, put it in my bag for extra ID for a job interview the week before and just forgot to take it out! Sudden brainwave when I thought I was stuck in Spain reminded me I had it!

So, entering the UK - I suddenly realised on the flight that maybe I should've got the UK ETA but too late then! SO I just showed up at the UK Immigration desk with the Aussie one, briefly explained that my UK one had been "lost" by Spanish Immigration who'd given it to someone else (which caused both UK guys & my wheelchair pusher much hilarity!!) and then I had (by another stroke of luck) a photo of the important page of my UK passport on my phone, so I showed them the photo & both the guy and his supervisor were quite happy to le me through. In the light of that it seems to me that as long as you (or your daughter) can show you are British - with a copy of the UK passport either o paper o the phone, and explain about the renewal, you should be fine.

I did mention to them that I hadn't cancelled it yet as I was waiting t see if the other woman had it when she checked in the following day & they just said fair enough, but if she didn't have it then cancel asap.

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

Wow, very lucky to find out you have your 2nd passport on you in such a situation! Personally I always travel with both as you never know what can happen (global events, local crises, etc.).

It's good that the border people didn't cause any issues even though I'm not sure what their options are: can they actually deny a UK citizen... entry. Or worse yet, force a UK national onto the next flight back? Still, it's a positive thing that they handled this without many hours' delay and making you jump through hoops before letting you in.

As you mentioned, having a scan/copy of the passport, even if only stored digitally on your phone, is a necessity nowadays. For those using Microsoft's range of products, OneDrive has a 'Vault' feature for storing sensitive docs and they have a phone app as well.

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

Yeah I keep stuff like that on Onedrive. Usually only took one passport in case of bag theft, I didn't want to lose both, but I think I might change that policy now!
As long as you can prove you're a UK citizen (eg passport copy/photo) I think you'd be fine, they didn't seem fazed by it at all, they were more interested in taking the mickey out of the Spanish! There was no suggestion that I should've got an ETA :)
I've also seen a few people on a facebk group for Poms in Australia report showing expired UK passports, with a current Aus one, and they have got in no problem :)

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

Not sure how reliable this is but seems that residents may still have have to join th EES queue with us plebs 😃

Olive Press

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

I have been saying this for a while, since I read an article written by Simon Calder, the travel journalist, about his experience of using the EES machine at Prague airport just after the system went live. He reported that after having his passport scanned by the machine, the next question displayed on the screen was "do you have a residence permit?". In view of that, it seemed obvious to me that those of us with TIEs WILL have to use the machine initially, if we answer yes to the question about the residence permit we may have to have that scanned as well before it directs us to proceed to a Border Control desk for the manual check. If that wasn't the case, why would the question about the residence permit even be there? All that we will be exempt from is having to provide the biometrics again because they will already be on record, from the 90/180 restrictions and from having to buy the ETIAS visa when it comes into force.

Here is the article

Simon Calder tests the new EU entry-exit system | The Independent

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

I just came through Madrid airport from the Middle East , seemed super efficient with lots of staff helping and guiding where needed. All UK passport holders go through the same process and same machines. You get asked various questions including residency at the first booth, then move on to an e-gate and then to a border guard. Some nationalities had fingerprints taken we didn’t. I assume as time moves on the number of registration booths will decrease and you will go straight to an e-gate. So it seems at Madrid all UK passport holders join the same queue just the process afterwards varies slightly.

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

Thank you for confirming that.

Re: EES & ETIAS update and explanation
 

Yesterday in Valencia a British friend just breezed thru as normal. The booths were there but were not open...