Borders. “Incapacity” and “support” from the Government. PSP’s largest union accuses national management

The president of PSP Union Association of Police Professionals (ASPP) – the most representative union of this security force – extends to the national management the responsibility for the “lack of conditions” for the police to control passengers at airport borders, a responsibility they inherited two years ago from the extinct Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF).

With a plenary session scheduled for next Tuesday, at Lisbon airport, Paulo Jorge Santos presents the reasons for this measure “for the dignification of the Airport Security and Border Control Specialty and against pressure and monitoring from private entities to State professionals and services”.

“The creation of the National Unit for Foreigners and Borders (UNEF) with the characteristics it has, and with a Public Security Police with obvious shortcomingswithin the framework of profound changes, including at European level (new system), in a structural reality of airports without capacity, translates into something worrying, and an inclear definition of the future“, he highlighted to Diário de Notícias.

“If this is added to the devaluation of PSP professionals, who are carrying out an arduous mission, with a lot of competence but half the salary that the SEF maintained, and with a pressure from the management company ANA-Aeroportos, which intends to shield its commercial activityit appears that everything has come together so that the future is not bright”, he adds.

The union leader reveals that “ASPP has received a lot of complaints, mainly about exhaustion, burnout and blatant lack of motivation among professionals”, a situation that is “exacerbated by the stance of the National Directorate of the PSP, of inability to force the government to create the necessary conditions“.

Furthermore, he highlights, that the “criticism” that comes to this union is directed “not only at the government that does not create the conditions, but also at a national leadership that supports this government option“.

Paulo Jorge Santos concludes that, “as the situation worsens every day, with harm to professionals, but also to passengers, and so that PSP professionals do not suffer unfair criticism, ASPP will move forward with a plenary session at Lisbon airport”.

As DN reported, the national director of the PSP, Luís Carrilho, was appointed to coordinate the “special team” created by the Government, to manage passenger flows at the international airports Humberto Delgado, in Lisbon, and Gago Coutinho, in Faro.

PSP is now under pressure to reduce average passenger waiting times at these airports, which have suffered “significant constraints in queue management (…) with an impact on the comfort and safety of passengers and the image and economy of the country”, as written in the preamble of the order dated October 26th.

Therefore, it is imposed on the PSP top manager that, within 100 days, he achieves the following objectives: on arrivals, reduce the average waiting time from “less than 30 minutes” to “less than 20 and the maximum time from “less than 75 minutes” to “less than 55 minutes”; on departures, the reduction must be “less than 20 minutes” in the average waiting time for 15 minutes and from “less than 35” to “less than 25 minutes” for maximum times”.

The Government also requires that “passenger flow patterns and possible operational constraints be analyzed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis”; that waiting times and critical points of congestion are monitored “in real time” at Humberto Delgado airport; that the plan to expand installed capacity (e-gates, boxes and SSK) in border control at this airport be carried out “as a matter of urgency”, among others.