Overview
- The Entry/Exit System (EES), rolled out at scale on April 10, has increased passport‑control times for many non‑EU travellers and produced queue spikes reported up to five hours at multiple European airports.
- Airlines led by Ryanair have identified about 15–16 hotspot airports where slow biometric enrolment, kiosk malfunctions and inconsistent national IT links are causing repeated delays.
- Passengers have suffered missed flights and direct costs, with one British family reporting nearly £1,969 in extra expenses after being held in long passport queues at Milan Linate.
- Trade bodies including IATA, ACI Europe and Airlines for Europe wrote to the European Commission in mid‑July warning EES has reached a critical point and asking for the temporary fallback that suspends biometrics during exceptional queues to be extended.
- EU officials say most borders show limited disruption and the system delivers security benefits, but the fallback rule is time‑limited and many airports warn that without extra kiosks, staff and extended flexibilities this summer's c.40 million extra passengers could produce wider operational and economic fallout.