British holidaymakers may have to spend several hours in airport queues when travelling to Europe at Easter, travel experts have warned.
The new, post-Brexit entry/exit system (EES) takes longer because it requires non-EU nationals to have photos and fingerprint scans when arriving at passport control.
IT problems have already led to long waits during the gradual introduction in recent months. The congestion is expected to get worse when the system is fully implemented from 10 April.
The UK Government has warned Britons that they may face “longer waits” than expected when heading to Europe in the days ahead. The EES system will be “a significant change for Brits travelling this Easter”, said Labour’s border minister Alex Norris.
Three-hour waits have been seen at peak periods in recent months, said the Airports Council International (ACI) Europe – adding that airports in Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany and Greece had been “especially impacted”.
EES queues could increase to four hours by the summer, the airline group has warned – pointing to “critical” technical and staffing problems.
The i Paper has taken a closer look at where British tourists may suffer from the longest queues, based on the airports struggling most with the new biometric system.
Lanzarote
British holidaymakers have suffered two-hour waits at Lanzarote airport recently, according to tourist federation chief Susana Pérez. Some tourists have reported three-hour queues at the Spanish island’s passport control.
Pérez told Lanzarote’s Lancelot TV earlier this month that the wait times were “unacceptable”, citing technical failures and lack of EES kiosks.
This is the end of a very, very….very long queue for customs arrivals at Aeropuerto de Lanzarote. @TUIUK #travelchaos #holidayhell #lanzarote pic.twitter.com/G6EzKTiedg
— Mark Jones (@markjonescp) March 5, 2026Other destinations in Spain have been hit by similar problems. British travellers at Malaga Airport have previously told The i Paper of “horrific” one hour 40 minute waits.
Holidaymakers heading to the Canary Islands are set to face more disruption. A baggage handlers strike will affect airports at Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, and Fuerteventura on 28 and 29 March. Further walkouts are planned between 2 and 6 April.
Lisbon
Chaos at Lisbon airport in Portugal in December – when queues reportedly hit six hours – forced the authorities to suspend EES checks entirely.
Portugal’s ministry of internal administration has said the new biometric data checks have “gradually resumed” since the beginning of the year.
Minha mãe, com quase 70 anos, está há 6 horas na fila do controle de passaporte do Aeroporto de Lisboa. Sem comida, sem água, sem banheiro, junto com centenas de outros, incluindo idosos e crianças.Escárnio completo em um aeroporto que se propõe a ser um hub para a AL na UE. pic.twitter.com/IXmf2ywEU4
— Emiliano Abad (@emilianoabad) December 28, 2025The ministry told the Lusa news agency earlier this month that self-service kiosks for non-EU arrivals have been installed at airports to try to minimise disruption.
Yet the Portuguese Government also admitted that “operational constraints” were still impacting the country’s airports.
Paris
Non-EU passengers arriving at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in recent months have complained of waits of up to two-and-a-half hours on social media.
British tourist John Duncan told The i Paper that he had to queue for one hour and 45 minutes to get through passport control in February.
“It was slow and frustrating,” he said. “We missed our ongoing train connection. Charles de Gaulle is just woefully inefficient.”
Charles de Gaulle airport is an absolute shambles. Passport 'control' 1 hr 45 minutes. I had to cancel our train tickets in the Q and buy other ones for our onward journey. Endless messages saying working hard to clear queue. My arse, 4 out of 15 positions open
— John Duncan (@Newbattleatwar) February 16, 2026There have been widespread kiosk malfunctions and IT problems at the airport, according to a report by The Connexion website earlier this month.
Aéroports de Paris (ADP), which manages Charles-de-Gaulle and Paris Orly airports, has called for a suspension of the full EES implementation until after August.
The European Commission has said the biometric checks can be suspended for up to six hours when congestion is bad right up until September. But airline groups want even more leeway.
Milan
British passengers complained of queues of two hours at Milan’s Malpensa airport earlier this year.
Aviation economist Oliver Ranson previously predicted that Milan would be one of the three European airports most at risk of gridlock from the EES rollout. The others were Athens and Bucharest.
The current scene at @MilanBergamoBGY where @Ryanair passengers from @EDI_Airport have been queuing for over 2 hours at passport control under new entry/exit scheme. Only a third processed so far. Another Brexit benefit – hah! @BBCScotlandNews @STVNews @ScottishSun pic.twitter.com/ZNPnXhJsJZ
— Bob Dow (@therealbobdow) January 13, 2026These airports have the steadiest flow of non-EU travellers arriving throughout the day, so were likely to struggle the most, Ranson wrote on his blog.
Things can get “very gnarly very quickly” as arrivals keep on coming, he said. But airports with only short peak periods may be better able to cope.
Geneva
Travellers to Europe’s busiest ski destination have complained about being stuck in four-hour lines since EES began being rolled out in October.
One British holidaymaker who queued for more than two hours at Geneva airport with his family in October described it as “a traveller’s worst nightmare”.
Switzerland’s public broadcaster RTS reported “interminable queues” of two-and-a-half hours during peak ski season in February.
Berlin
Non-EU passengers arriving at Berlin Brandenburg Airport have reported waits of between one and two hours on social media in recent weeks.
One British passenger who travelled to Berlin in December said the EES system at the airport was a “total farce”, with automatic kiosks not working.
Despite the problems highlighted at these popular destinations, travel experts warned that long queues may emerge at almost airport across the continent in the months ahead.
Ash Bhardwaj, author of Why We Travel, said checks at Oslo Airport took him one hour and 20 minutes when he went to Norway last month.
“It can take ages,” the travel expert recently told The i Paper. “The hope is they will get more efficient at it. But effectively, as a product of Brexit, travel [to the EU] is always going to take longer now.”
The Government has urged holidaymakers to allow additional time at the border when travelling to the EU. “We continue to engage with the European Commission on taking steps to help minimise disruption for Brits as much as possible,” said the border minister.
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