Blunder as travellers on flight from Poland skip passport check

The passengers, who arrived in the Capital on an easyJet flight from Krakow on Monday afternoon, were guided into the terminal by the handling agent via a wrong door, which meant they bypassed immigration control. However, they were identified by the handling agent and airport staff shortly afterwards and subsequently passed through immigration control.

The handling agent for the flight was Menzies and an investigation has been launched.

An Edinburgh Airport source said: “Security at all Scottish airports was considerably tightened following the Glasgow Airport attack in 2007. Countless thousands has been spent ensuring these places are bullet and bomb proof so it beggars belief this was allowed to happen. You can’t have people waltzing willy-nilly through an international border.”

Mike Crockart, Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West said: “Perhaps skipping passport control is an easyJet extra. We can be thankful the flight came from a European Union partner and therefore posed a minimal security threat, but as Edinburgh grows and operates to more destinations it will need to ensure mistakes like this never happen again.”

Meanwhile, Conservative councillor for Almond, Lindsay Paterson, branded the incident “very worrying”. “The onus is really on the airport now to figure out how it happened and to ensure that it doesn’t happen again,” she said.

A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said: “I can confirm that a group of passengers were exited via a wrong door. All were quickly identified and processed.

“We have launched an investigation to understand how this happened and to ensure it does not happen again.”