Premium card-holders travelling through Spain’s two busiest airports will spend less time in security queues this summer. On 17 July Mastercard announced it has activated dedicated Fast Track lanes in Terminal 1 of both Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat. The lanes, part of the global Mastercard Collection programme, allow eligible World, World Elite and World Legend customers (plus one guest) to bypass the main checkpoint by scanning a QR code or using the Mastercard Travel Pass app. Madrid and Barcelona join Athens and Istanbul as the latest European additions, signalling growing competition among payment networks to bundle tangible travel benefits. For corporate travellers the upside is predictable throughput times—a key consideration now that the EU’s Entry/Exit System adds biometric steps for many non-EU visitors. Airlines serving T1—home to Iberia’s Schengen flights in Madrid and Vueling’s short-haul network in Barcelona—expect the lanes to shave 10-15 minutes off peak-hour dwell times, helping them improve on-time performance during the second ‘operación salida’ of the Spanish holiday season. Companies can register corporate cards centrally, but employees must still ensure passports meet EES photo-quality standards; otherwise, any time saved at security could be lost at the subsequent border booths.
Source: Europa Press
