In addition to the plenary session taking place at the Border Control Squad, ASPP leaders have also been distributing information to passengers outside the airport about the current situation regarding passenger control at airport borders, a responsibility that the PSP inherited two years ago from the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF).

This plenary session takes place on the day with the highest number of flights to and from outside the Schengen Area (the European area of ​​free movement of people and goods), which could lead to further constraints, as the new Entry/Exit System (EES) has caused problems, mainly at Lisbon and Faro airports.

Queues

According to ECO, the protest caused significant queues at border control at Humberto Delgado airport exits, reaching almost to the duty-free exit. The situation was more regular at arrivals.

“We consider Tuesday to be the ideal day, because we need to have some impact and give some dimension so that, once and for all, both the Government and public opinion understand the real state of the service at airports and the difficulties we are having, because it seems that nobody wants to listen to us,” the president of ASPP told Lusa.

For Paulo Santos, it is important not only to hold the plenary session to listen to the police officers, but also to be outside the airport, in the arrivals area, to distribute “some information to citizens in order to explain why delays often occur”.

The president of the largest Public Security Police union stressed that he cannot understand the reasons that led the Government to create a National Foreigners and Borders Unit (UNEF) “in a PSP that is totally depleted in terms of personnel”.

“Exhaustion, burnout and demotivation”

“We are constantly seeing the country's commands losing capacity in the police stations to fulfil the mission of the UNEF,” he denounced, stressing that the police officers working at the airports, especially in Lisbon, are “totally exhausted and demotivated by this situation”. According to Paulo Santos, the ASPP has received several complaints from police officers experiencing “exhaustion, burnout and demotivation”.

“We are seeing our colleagues overworked, but also facing the idea, often conveyed abroad, that the delays, difficulties, and constraints that exist at airports are the responsibility of the police, and we do not accept that,” he said.

He stated that the root cause of these delays “does not stem from the police service itself, but from the lack of resources and even structural capacity of the airport,” he emphasized. Paulo Santos argued that, in addition to increasing the police force, it is also necessary to create technological and physical working conditions, but mainly to stop treating police officers “as ‘low-cost’ police,” considering that they should be “valued and compensated” with the granting of an airport supplement, as was the case with former SEF inspectors.