I’m not normally a nervous flyer but all the talk about travellers being denied
flights because their passports were out of date or because the name on their vaccination certificate did not match that on their passport I was a little anxious about flying this time around. Even more so when it was our first flight for 21 months.
I needn’t have been so. It all went extremely smoothly and hopefully the details here will help allay others’ fears?
We arrived at Glasgow Airport to meet an ex-work colleague whom I hadn’t seen for 2 years who even more coincidentally had just arrived back from Puerto Pollensa on a
Jet2 flight. After a quick quiz about flights, restaurants, masks, etc we made our way to check-in. Normally at GLA the easyJet check in is completely self service but yesterday there was someone positioned at the start of the queue to check documentation. They wanted to see boarding card, vaccination certificate and SpTH QR code. I had all of these available electronically on my phone but I also had paper copies which were actually easier to check quickly.
My vaccination certificate has my forename and surname whereas my passport includes my middle name. I’m not saying I did this (illegal?) but did you know that the Scottish vaccination certificate is an unprotected PDF file so can be downloaded and ‘amended’ in a PDF editor (doesn’t amend the details in the QR code however).
Our tickets were purchased back in Feb 2020 and I noticed the printed boarding card correctly showed our Speedy Boarding status but the electronic version specifically said “Speedy Boarding No”.
At the gate, when we were called forward for boarding however, it was first come first served but as the flight was probably only quarter full this wasn’t an inconvenience. I did note though that boarding took a little longer than normal as there was quite a few passengers without hold luggage so had missed the document check that we had gone through. That had to be checked at the gate. From what I saw the check was just that they had them not the detail – it was all done too quickly for that.
The flight itself was excellent, slight delay taking off due to thunderstorms in Palma, but actually we made that time up and landed on time. There were no bistro menu cards or ‘duty free’ leaflets in the seat back pockets so all refering had to be done blind. The easyJet staff were excellent.
Once in PMI we first negotiated the electronic passport readers. Mine took three insertions before it opened the gate and I don’t believe I did anything different each time. There were plenty of staff on hand to help. One point to note that I already knew was that you had to take your mask off for the photograph part of the passport check (obvious really!).
Strangely, immediately after the gates, there was just one border staff positioned who took our passports and stamped them. Not sure what that was about. After the plentiful supply of passport gates having just one person doing this caused a bit of a bottleneck.
From there it was on to collect our baggage. Just prior to the final corridor before the baggage hall there were airport staff checking that you had your SpTH QR code ready. Then, as you come down the ramp into the baggage hall, you’re met with what seemed like dozens of health workers in white coats and other staff directing you to one of their desks. They then scanned the QR code and we were on our way. All very easy, quick and straightforward although the airport did not look particularly busy – might have been different with more arriving flights...
One last point which I guess is covid related. Our driver always meets us inside the terminal at the meeting point at “gate 4 hall inside” but this time all the drivers seemed to waiting outside the terminal in the open air.
We left our house in Scotland at 14:30 and were in our house in Pollensa at just before 23:00 Spanish time which is actually about the same time it normally takes. HTH
7Likes
GLA to PMI Saturday 18 Sept
Linear Mode
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks