The accidental opening of a barrier separating domestic and international passengers at a French airport caused chaos and hours of delays at one French airport, local media reported.
Marseille-Provence airport in the south of France saw chaotic scenes and delays to flight departures on Thursday evening after a “containment problem”.
Local newspaper La Provence has now revealed the exact nature of the problem – the opening of a barrier designed to separate domestic or Schengen area passengers from non-EU international departures.
Passengers flying within France, or within the Schengen area, do not have to undergo the same level of passport and immigration checks at those flying to a non-EU destination, and so go through separate departure processes.
However late on Thursday afternoon a barrier between the two sectors of the airport was opened, and dozens of passengers followed the queue to the wrong area.
Airport staff realised the problem at around 6pm on Thursday and were forced to re-do departure checks, causing chaos in the airport and the late departure of several flights.
According to La Provence, it was a 48-year-old man from Marseille, reported to be drunk, who opened the barrier and caused the chaos.
He was arrested and missed his flight to Istanbul, which took off one hour and 15 minutes late, without him.
Around 1,000 passengers were reported to have been affected, with five flights showing as delayed including departures to Corsica and La Réunion.
Local newspaper La Provence used the classic French headline format Ivre, il for their story – Ivre, il ouvre les frontières par erreur et retarde un millier de passagers à l’aéroport Marseille Provence (Drunk, he opened the border by mistake and delayed 1,000 passengers at Marseille-Provence airport)
