British holidaymakers could face queues of up to five hours in cities across Europe from Monday, travel experts have warned, with EU border checks set to resume in full following a temporary pause over the summer.
The new Entry/Exit System (EES) system for British passport holders and other third-country travellers to nations within the EU or Schengen area initially came into effect in April, but member states were allowed to relax some restrictions to ease congestion at borders during peak season.
However, these permissions, which included suspending biometric checks during busy periods, will expire for the 29 countries using EES on Sunday – despite several countries asking the European Commission to keep it.
In July, nine countries – Greece, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Switzerland and the Netherlands – called the loophole’s planned end “a source of serious and legitimate concern” in a letter to European Commissioner for Internal and Migration Affairs Magnus Brunner.
Asked about the matter during a press briefing this week, the European Commission said it was in “close and constructive contact” with the “few member states where some adjustments are needed at certain border crossing points.”
It added that there was a “strong joint will” to make the system work and that the Commission was ready to provide “additional support” to affected member states which could include “operational assistance” and additional officers being deployed.
With the EES system set to resume in full from next week, here are some of the cities where long queues could await British travellers.
Queues could last ‘as long as five hours’ at Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam
John Sullivan, commercial director of Advantage Travel Partnership, the UK’s largest consortium of independent travel business, said the need to address the problems surrounding EES is becoming “increasingly urgent”.
“Although some airports may have the technology, staffing and processes in place to ensure the system operates with limited disruption, the European Commission cannot overlook the fact that nine member states are questioning its claims that the EES rollout is proceeding as planned,” he told The i Paper.
Sullivan suggested that British passengers at airports in capital cities such as Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam could face lengthy waits when the EES checks resume.
“With some of Europe’s busiest airports, including Brussels, Paris and Amsterdam, still facing the possibility of queues lasting as long as five hours, the immediate priority must be resolving the problems already being experienced before adding further layers of bureaucracy,” he said.
“People spend months looking forward to and saving for their holidays, and they should be able to enjoy that time creating memories rather than being stuck in airport queues.
“The decision to postpone the introduction of ETIAS later this year demonstrates that pragmatic action is possible when necessary. The ongoing issues with EES now require the same level of urgency.”
Which other airports could be affected?
Earlier this summer, budget airline Ryanair identified seven popular European airports where passengers were already suffering long delays due to the EU border checks.
The airline said airports which were particularly struggling with EES were Spain’s Tenerife South, Palma, Alicante and Malaga, Milan Bergamo in Italy, Krakow in Poland and France’s Paris Beauvais.
These sites were “not ready” to manage the high passenger volumes during the peak summer season because of “insufficient staff, kiosks and system readiness,” Ryanair added.
Popular destinations for British travellers such as Palma de Mallorca and Alicante “have been affected quite greatly,” Andrew Harrison-Chinn, chief marketing officer of travel benefits platform Dragonpass, told The i Paper in June.
Typical “bottleneck” destinations were smaller airports that see a large volume of British or other non-EU travellers, but lack the necessary infrastructure to efficiently channel arrivals through the system, Harrison-Chinn added.
Passengers at larger European airports including Amsterdam, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Zurich have also been hit with long wait times since the new system was rolled out, particularly during peak travel times such as early mornings and weekends.
Other airports which have been forced to temporarily suspend EES due to travel chaos, or where passengers have missed flights due to hours-long border queues earlier this year, include Lisbon and Milan Linate.
Passengers have been stranded due to their flight leaving without them at other airports including Athens, from where a London Luton-bound flight reportedly left without dozens of passengers in June.
The worries expressed by countries like Greece which see high levels of travellers from the UK raise the question of whether airports which struggled to cope with passenger traffic will have gained the capabilities to better handle demand by the time the EES checks resume from 7 September.
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