Ryanair passengers stranded in Greece after 'mega-queue' piles up thanks to EU border chaos

Ryanair passengers were left stranded in Greece after they were stuck in a "mega-queue" caused by the EU's controversial border system.

A flight from Athens International Airport to London Luton took off without as many as 50 of its passengers.

The sudden departure of the flight left some would-be flyers furious - which caused airport authorities to step in.

It is just the latest in a series of incidents ever since the implementation of the EU's Entry Exit System (EES).

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Ryanair blamed border delays for the incident, while the airport said it had experienced congestion linked to "additional processing requirements" - but neither side directly blamed the EES, which requires passengers to register biometric details such as fingerprints and photographs upon entry to Europe.

Milo Boyd, a travel writer who managed to successfully board the Ryanair flight, said he did not have his biometric information taken on entry or exit at Athens.

He experienced a "mega queue" of several hundred people at both security and passport control - amid a sweltering heat wave in the Greek capital.

Mr Boyd said while he was lucky enough to be able to make his gate and board the flight, at least 20 people had arrived too late.

People were "pleading with the Ryanair staff" to be allowed to board the flight, with one man looking "like he was about to explode", the Mail writer added.

The flight also missed its air traffic control slot, departing an hour late in order to remove the missing passenger's bags, according to the BBC.

Athens International Airport said authorities intervened to "maintain orderly operations" at the gate, as "a number of passengers expressed their dissatisfaction".

A spokesman said there were "periods of congestion at passport control in the departures area due to high passenger volumes and the additional processing requirements associated with travel to non-Schengen destinations".

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They added: "As is currently the case at many European airports, passenger flows on certain routes may experience increased processing times as new border-control procedures continue to be implemented and refined."

Ryanair said in a statement "a number of passengers" did not board due to delays caused by border control at Athens airport.

"All passengers that were at the boarding gate when this flight from Athens to London Luton boarded, travelled without incident," Ryanair said.

But this is not the first time the budget airline has left passengers stranded since the implementation of the EES.

Earlier this month, a Ryanair flight from Toulouse abandoned 150 passengers as the border control queue turned into a "scrummage".

At the time, Ryanair said: "All passengers that were at the boarding gate when this flight from Toulouse to London Stansted boarded were accommodated and travelled without incident."

And in March, a flight from Lanzarote to Bristol left half-empty, leaving behind nearly 90 passengers in the Canary Islands.

Ryanair said at the time: "Should these passengers have presented at the boarding gate desk before it closed, they would have boarded this flight alongside the 90 passengers who did present at the gate on time."

Ryanair is not the only airline to have suffered problems with the EES.

Passengers on an EasyJet flight from Milan queued up for up to three hours - only to miss their flights to Manchester.

Last week, a member of the EU's border security agency warned it could take one to two years to adjust "to the new reality", admitting it could "take some fine tuning".

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