Brits are being met with long queues at Spanish airports with snaking lines seen outside passport control at major terminals.
Up to 3,000 passengers missed their flights at Madrid Airport over the Easter break, according to local media, with fears those scenes could be repeated over the Summer holidays.
President of Airlines Association (ALA) in Spain Javier Gandara has called for National Police officers to be put on duty in Spanish airports to check passports, particularly British ones.
Since Brexit, British tourists are only allowed to stay in the Schengen area (a free movement area without border controls that includes 26 countries including Spain but excluding Ireland) for 90 out of 180 days and must get their passports stamped when they leave or could face being refused entry on another visit.
Mr Gandara added: “It will be the first summer when passports for travellers to the UK have to be checked and the first when air traffic is likely to be normal, now that the British government has lifted all the restrictions imposed because of the pandemic.”
It comes as some holidaymakers are reporting missing flights at Malaga Airport in recent days due to massive queues.
Some British passengers claimed Irish citizens are getting “preferential treatment”, Birmingham Live reports.
Others reported “two hour queues for non-EU passengers”.
“Sitting in Malaga Airport to return. What a joke! A huge queue for UK passengers stretching all the way back to duty free exit…whilst the lane for EU empty.
“Preferential treatment for the one flight to Ireland. Travellers beware,” one person said on Twitter.