A The Portugal News reader who passed through on 14 June was pleasantly surprised with the improvements in waiting times when he arrived at Faro Airport.
As a frequent traveller, he was expecting the long queues in the arrivals after landing from the United Kingdom.
In a video sent to our newspaper, which he took, shows how short the queues were on 14 June, with waiting times not exceeding 5 minutes for UK passengers. This was despite 5 flights from the UK and Ireland arriving on or at the same time.
Functioning EES
According to the reader, the EES machines were all working properly at around 7:50 pm.
Although the number of electronic gates is not publicly available, the reader states that Faro Airport may have the same number of electronic gates as bigger airports like London Gatwick, where The Portugal News reader flew from.
To The Portugal News, the reader stated that “thankfully, all the electronic machines were working in Faro and as a regular traveller, this brings joy rather than dread at arriving in Faro especially for the holiday season.”
Sign of Hope
The situation described may bring hope to the tourism sector and travellers from non-Schengen Area countries who have scheduled their trips to Portugal.
If the border system continues to run as smoothly as on 14 June, passengers may expect a quicker arrival in the Algarve, without feeling any constraints at the airports.
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As a regular business traveller, Faro categorically does not have the same number as e-gates as airports such as Gatwick.
Whilst there have been improvements in wait times over the past few weeks this is mainly due to additional border staff and changes made to the queuing system.
There is still generally a single line / staff member dedicated to arrivals of EU citizens and residents and there are still noticeable delays when departing Faro early evening or arriving off a flight landing between 10 amd 11pm.
We’ve not yet reached the height of the summer tourist season, so we should probably reserve judgement until then.
By John Redston from Algarve on 15 Jun 2026, 17:09
We arrived from Newcastle at Faro on 14th June, landed just after 10:30 am.
We did not have the smooth passage your reporter did. I would call it chaos.
The biometric machines were failing to read fingerprints for many people. Lots of those who did get sent to Egates found they were hit and miss. So the queue for the manual checks was quite large, with only 2 booths manned. I hope it does improve but not in my experience so far.
By Kenneth Salmon from UK on 16 Jun 2026, 16:05