EES rollout triggers delays, biometric suspensions at EU airports

The full launch of the Entry-Exit System (EES) last Friday has led to long queues, missed flights, and suspensions of biometric enrollment at some airports. Major air travel organizations have once again warned that border control authorities must be allowed to fully suspend Europe’s biometric border registration scheme to avoid excessive waiting times.​

The introduction of the system resulted in waiting times of between two and three hours at airport border controls across Europe, according to Airlines for Europe (A4E) and Airports Council International (ACI) Europe. Passengers say disruptions were caused by a lack of organization, staffing shortages and technical failures.​

Airports in Portugal decided to pause biometric collection due to excessive wait times for passengers. Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado, Porto’s Francisco Sá Carneiro and Faro’s Gago Coutinho Airports halted the EES in the morning of April 11th and restarted it in the afternoon.

Other airports continued biometric enrollment, but passengers paid the price.

At Milan Linate Airport, only 34 of 156 passengers managed to board their easyJet flight to Manchester scheduled for Sunday. A family of UK nationals said that they arrived at Milan airport nearly three hours before their flight to Manchester but could not board the plane on time.

“There were two officers and one biometric machine,” Max Hume, a teacher from Yorkshire, told The Independent. “We had to do a face scan, passport scan, and fingerprints. Every single person. But there were about 16 machines that could have been used automatically, and they didn’t open them. So everything was going at a snail’s pace.”

The Hume family ended up paying an additional £1,600 (US$2,150) for hotel accommodation and new flights back to the UK. EasyJet says that the EES delays are out of its control.

“We continue to urge border authorities to ensure they make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while EES is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays for our customers,” an airline spokesperson says.

Michael O’Leary, head of EasyJet’s main European rival, Ryanair, said last week that the EES rollout has been in “shambles,” predicting that smaller airports will suffer the most.

Some countries were better prepared than others in processing third-country nationals through the EES, according to Mark Tanzer, chief executive of Abta, a trade association for UK travel agents. Travel organizations, however, say that strengthening border management must not come at the expense of passenger experience.

A4E and ACI Europe said last Friday that “greater flexibility is immediately needed” and repeated its call to the European Commission to allow EES suspensions.

“Border control authorities must be allowed to fully suspend the EES when waiting times become excessive,” say Ourania Georgoutsakou, managing director of A4E, and Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe. “This is essential not only in the coming weeks, but throughout the peak summer travel season.”

The EU has allowed countries to partially suspend EES operations where necessary during an additional 90-day period after the launch, with a possible 60-day extension to cover the summer peak.

Sea and land border checks also experience queues

Long waiting times were also recorded at land borders of the Schengen Area, which includes 25 EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.

Wait times at the Croatia-Serbia border checkpoint Bajakovo surpassed three hours last Friday, driven by heavy passenger traffic ahead of the Orthodox Easter holiday.

Passengers were required to get out of their vehicles and undergo a scan at the land border crossing, with the police easing congestion by using mobile devices, according to Zoran Ničeno, assistant director general of the Croatian Police and head of the Border Administration.

“The border control takes about a minute, 70 seconds, depending on how skilled the person is at using the device,” he says.

The situation remains unchanged in the UK, where the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel announced delays in biometric border checks at the end of March. Currently, ferry passengers traveling by coach through the Port of Dover are enrolled in the EES, while car passengers are not. No launch date has been confirmed.

Eurotunnel says that screening questions will not appear on the machines at Dover port or at Eurostar’s London St Pancras terminal during the initial rollout period, according to the BBC.

French border police have previously said it will begin manually registering car travelers in the EES at crossing points, though biometric data such as facial recognition and fingerprints will not be collected at the outset.

The EES officially started its six-month rollout in October 2025. Last week, European authorities said that the system refused entry to 24,000 people for different reasons, including expired or fraudulent documents.

Article Topics

airport biometrics  |  biometrics  |  border security  |  digital travel  |  Entry/Exit System (EES)  |  EU  |  Europe