Prague’s Václav Havel Airport woke up this morning to an emergency operations plan aimed at relieving the chronic queues that have built up at passport control since the start of the autumn conference season. Airport management confirmed to Prague Daily News that, from today, a temporary additional border-control booth has been installed in Terminal 1 and staffed jointly by the Foreign Police and private security contractors. The move is designed to raise throughput during the morning wave of long-haul arrivals, when line-wait times have exceeded 45 minutes on several days this week. The immediate trigger was Thursday’s 6 a.m. arrival bank, when parallel flights from Doha, Dubai and New York overwhelmed the existing e-gate and manual channels. Corporate travel managers for two Czech multinationals told the paper that employees missed onward rail connections to Brno and Ostrava, generating knock-on hotel and re-ticketing costs. The airport now expects the extra booth to boost hourly processing capacity by roughly 650 passengers—about one Airbus A330—according to a Foreign Police spokesperson. Longer-term, the airport is accelerating an €18 million project to enlarge the entire border-control zone, scheduled for completion in April 2027. In the interim, passengers holding EU, EEA or Swiss passports are being urged to use the automated SmartGate lanes, while others can cut wait times by completing the digital travel-history declaration on the airport’s mobile app before landing. Business-travel consultancies say the episode is a reminder that Prague, although a Schengen hub, remains an external-border airport for flights arriving from the Middle East, North America and Asia. Companies are therefore advising travellers to add at least 30 minutes of buffer time to itinerary planning this month. Tour operators have welcomed the quick fix but warn that true relief will only come once the permanent expansion is finished next year.
Source: Prague Daily News
