British holidaymakers face a summer of travel disruption after airport and ferry industry leaders warned that the EU’s new Entry-Exit System is causing serious delays, with passengers queueing for hours and planes already taking off without dozens of their passengers on board.
The EU’s Entry-Exit System, which requires travellers from outside the bloc to register biometric data including fingerprints and facial images when entering most European countries, has been blamed for chaos at several major airports since its rollout. Stefan Schulte, president of Airports Council International Europe, delivered a blunt assessment at an event in Prague, saying politicians should “stop pretending… that EES is working just fine. It is not.” He added: “Passengers are queueing for hours at peak traffic times and I just do not know how we will be able to cope in the coming weeks with the expected increase in traffic.” Schulte called for EES to be suspended by Border Force when necessary, arguing it was “about showing respect and decency for those who chose to travel to the EU, and safeguarding our reputation as a welcoming and efficient destination.”
Christophe Mathieu, chief executive of Brittany Ferries, told BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday that the company shared those concerns and that what it had witnessed so far was troubling, with the system increasing the time needed to leave port by around 50 per cent. He argued the timing was wrong. “The run-up to summer was not the right moment to be finalising a system that should already have been tested and fully in place,” he said. Mathieu said Brittany Ferries had repeatedly raised its concerns with authorities in Paris, Brussels and Madrid and suggested a practical solution — that biometric checks could be carried out during ferry crossings, with border staff operating booths on board, allowing passengers to disembark seamlessly on arrival. He said the idea had so far failed to gain traction.
The disruption has already resulted in passengers being stranded. Earlier this month a Ryanair flight from Athens to London Luton took off without between 20 and 50 of its booked passengers, after authorities at Athens International Airport experienced severe congestion linked to EES. Travel writer Milo Boyd described a “mega queue” of several hundred people at both security and passport control. He and his wife made it through with ten minutes to spare, but said furious passengers were pleading with Ryanair staff to hold the gate. In May, a Ryanair flight from Toulouse to London Stansted departed without 150 passengers after they were unable to reach their gate in time, with one traveller describing the situation in the airport as “pure chaos.” A separate Ryanair flight from Milan Bergamo to Manchester left around 30 passengers stranded on 16 April after a queue that had not moved for more than an hour. Adam Hassanjee, 18, from Bolton, told the BBC: “We were waiting for an hour and a half and weren’t moving. Then we see the plane leave and got told we have to go and book our own flight back.”
The European Commission has moved to allow EES to be suspended in some circumstances until September. Greece’s tourism minister Olga Kefalogianni also promised earlier this year that British passengers would not face biometric checks when visiting Greece, though the Greek Foreign Ministry later disputed whether any formal exemption existed, leaving the situation unclear for travellers heading there this summer.
