British tourist dies at passport control at Lanzarote Airport | World | News

A British tourist has died at Lanzarote Airport shortly after arriving on a plane from the UK. The man is said to have collapsed in the approach to the passport control area less than half an hour after leaving the Jet2 plane he had reached the island on.

The alarm was raised just before 3pm local time on Thursday but there was nothing emergency responders could do to save the life of the unnamed Brit and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Well-placed sources said he had died of natural causes, with local reports pointing to him suffering a heart attack. They ruled out any obvious link to the long queues British holidaymakers travelling to the island regularly experience trying to get through passport control, although the tragedy has given rise to a new wave of complaints about the queue problems. It was not immediately clear this morning how old the tourist was and whether he was travelling alone or with family or friends.

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Civil Guard sources confirmed he was British and said the incident wasn’t being treated as suspicious.

The plane he was on is understood to have landed at 2.26pm on Thursday and the alarm about the health emergency sounded 22 minutes later at 2.48pm.

He was in a shaded area in terminal one of the airport – officially named Cesar Manrique-Lanzarote Airport – which passengers are funnelled into just before they reach the passport control booths manned by police.

Local press in their descriptions of the area say travellers have “no access to toilets, no seats and have to endure temperatures which at times are close to being unbearable.”

One island-based online media outlet said overnight, describing the horror being felt by Lanzarote tourist industry chiefs following the British tourist’s death: “The worry in the sector is that a luxury destination has a third-world entrance.

“Beyond Thursday’s tragic event, the tourism sector of Lanzarote is observing with growing concern what happens every day at passport controls.

“Sources from the sector agree on an alarming diagnosis: the queues are not only long, they are becoming a cause for despair.”