Lorraine Williamson
Balearic airport passport queues have been a post-Brexit talking point for years, especially at Palma. Now Aena is planning changes designed to make passport control smoother by creating a clearer passenger flow towards a dedicated non-Schengen boarding area at the islands’ airports. The goal is to reduce pinch points and the stop-start chaos that can build when several UK flights land or depart at the same time.
The timing is not accidental. The EU’s biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) is designed to digitise border crossings for non-EU travellers, and the Balearics’ travel industry has been warning that queues will worsen if infrastructure and staffing do not keep pace. A local report said agencies were calling for measures to avoid “chaos” as controls tighten.
What’s actually being proposed at Palma, Ibiza and Menorca?
The story sits inside Aena’s longer-term investment planning. Coverage of Aena’s programme for Palma (and linked plans across the islands) describes work that would reorganise security and border-control areas to improve efficiency — including, for Ibiza and Menorca, a single access route leading to a non-Schengen boarding area.
This is not a “British lane” in the strict sense. It is a structural separation for non-Schengen passengers, which includes the UK, the US, Canada and other “third-country” travellers who pass through border control.
Why it still feels unfair for mixed-nationality couples
There is a moment many families know too well. One partner holds an EU passport. The other is British. You live in Spain, share a home, perhaps pay the same bills and taxes, yet at the airport you are funnelled into different places.
That happens because airport queues are organised around the traveller’s own document category, not the nationality of the person standing beside them. Aena’s guidance is framed around what you are carrying: a passport or travel document, and where relevant, a valid residence permit.
The redesign may shorten the time spent in the non-Schengen channel, but it won’t remove that basic split.
The big resident confusion: WA TIE versus the old green certificate
For UK residents in Spain, the most common set-up is a UK passport plus a Withdrawal Agreement TIE (often marked “art. 50 TUE”). Yet many people still travel with the old green residence certificate or a paper NIE document, believing it is “enough”.
Social media has made this worse. People post that they “never show the TIE” or that they have been waved through in the same queue as their EU spouse. That can happen, especially when officers are trying to clear a surge. But discretion in a quiet moment is not the same as a system rule.
Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion has warned explicitly that, once EES is in operation, Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries will need a TIE to be exempt from the new controls.
The UK government’s Spain guidance goes further and spells out the practical risk: under EES, the green certificate will not be accepted as proof of legal residency status at Schengen borders and does not exempt you from registering with EES, which could lead to residents being wrongly treated as overstayers under the 90-day rule.
The EU’s official EES site also states that the system does not apply to non-EU nationals who hold a residence card or permit issued by a participating country.
A practical question many residents ask: do you need a passport to fly to the islands?
If you’re travelling within Spain, you’re not crossing a border — but you still need to prove your identity to fly. This is where people’s real-life experience varies.
Aena’s own guidance for vuelos nacionales (origin and destination in Spain) lists several documents that can be valid at the airport, including a passport or travel document, a Spanish/Schengen residence permit, and a Spanish driving licence.
Some airlines publish very similar lists. Iberia, for example, says that for domestic flights, third-country nationals may use a passport/travel document, a Spanish/Schengen residence permit, and also a Spanish driving licence in certain circumstances.
But — and this matters — airline policy can be stricter than the general airport list. Ryanair’s help pages state that passengers must have a passport or national ID and that driving licences are not accepted.
So, in plain English: on a domestic route, you may sometimes get through with a Spanish driving licence (and many people have), but if your airline demands a passport, you can be refused boarding at the gate. The safest advice for UK residents is still to carry a passport + WA TIE, even for flights to the islands.
Non-Schengen flow
The Balearics’ airport changes are being framed as part of a broader investment push, but the pressure is immediate. If EES is rolled out in a way that increases processing time for non-Schengen passengers, the islands’ airports will feel it first — and Palma has already lived enough summers of queue misery to know what that looks like.
A redesigned non-Schengen flow could genuinely help. It just won’t fix the deeper reality of post-Brexit travel: in a mixed-nationality couple, the passport in your hand still decides where you stand.