The worst airports in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy for EES delays ...Middle East

The EU’s controversial border checks are about to undergo their stiffest test yet as the start of the summer holiday getaway begins this weekend.

Britons will be among millions of non-EU passengers facing huge queues at airports due to the Entry-Exit System (EES) border checks, which replace manual passport stamping, in Schengen area countries.

Around 40 million extra passengers are expected at European airports over July and August, where queues have already stretched to five hours, leading to some people missing their flights.

Ryanair has warned millions of UK families to steel themselves for long passport queues and airport delays from the post-Brexit checks, citing Lisbon, Tenerife South, Alicante and Milan Bergamo among 15 blackspots.

As schools prepare to break up for the summer, nine EU states have written to the European Commission urging Brussels to extend emergency measures to ease queues.

Ministers from Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland are calling for the extension of a provision that allows EES biometric checks to be suspended for a few hours in exceptional circumstances if queues are too long, although passengers must still be registered on the system upon arrival.

The fallback measure, which has been used at airports across Europe in recent months, is due to end on 6 September, but the EU has rejected calls to extend it.

“The reality is that the EES system isn’t working properly and families are paying the price for a system that does not work months after launch,” said Ryanair’s chief operations officer, Neal McMahon.

“Passengers should not be the testing ground for unfinished border infrastructure.”

Michael O’Leary’s carrier pinpointed the EES airports where it said passengers have seen significant delays by implementation of the fingerprint and facial recognition border checks, including Lisbon, Tenerife South, Madrid, Lanzarote, Alicante, Malaga, Milan Bergamo, Milan Malpensa, Verona, Paris Beauvais, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt Hahn, Krakow and Budapest.

However, many passengers say they have had no problems with the extra checks, and have experienced no delays.

In a joint letter this month, trade bodies representing Europe’s airlines and airports wrote to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warning EES had led to a “critical point”, with queues of up to five hours.

ACI Europe, Airlines for Europe and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said inadequate staffing at airport border checkpoints and the reliability of the central EES platform and national interfaces were among problems causing delays.

They have called for a fallback that allows for a temporary suspension of EES biometrics checks to be extended beyond September.

Brussels also said there were only 20 difficult spots out of the 1,500 border crossing points

Meanwhile, analysis from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has warned consistent EES border waits of three or more hours could significantly deter around one-third of travellers from visiting the Schengen area, putting up to 41 million arrivals at risk.

Here are some of the airports where travellers have been caught up in delays and chaos:

Lisbon

At the start of the year, Portugal suspended EES for three months after chaotic scenes at Lisbon airport that left passengers stuck in queues of up to seven hours.

Tim Wofford, from Oklahoma City, USA, who travelled from Lisbon to Philadelphia, said rows broke out between passengers during his three-and-half hour wait in line at passport control.

The Portuguese government announced this month that an extra 367 border agents had been drafted in to help ease congestion at airports.

Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport will see 170 Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP) officers deployed, with 78 more dispatched to Porto, 69 to Faro and 29 to Madeira.

Self-service EES kiosks have been installed at airports, while Portugal is one of only two countries – the other being Sweden – that has adopted an app designed to help travellers save time by registering details before travelling.

Milan 

In April, more than 100 passengers missed their flight to Gatwick after getting stuck in three-hour border queues at Milan Linate.

Cristian Sternativo, a border officer at Milan Malpensa Airport and provincial secretary of the SAP police union, urged passengers to arrive four hours early for flights.

Problems from EES have been reported at other Italian airports, with Marco Troncone, the head of Aeroporti di Roma, Fiumicino, Italy, warning of a summer “disaster” if the checks are not suspended.

Stefano Paoloni, the secretary general of SAP, said more EES kiosks, space, and personnel are needed to cope with passenger numbers.

“From Fiumicino Airport to Malpensa Airport, moments of tension have arisen among passengers, so, precisely to avoid this, procedures are sometimes partially and temporarily suspended during peak hours,” he said.

Paris

Technical failures and software delays are currently preventing the biometric EES kiosks from operating at French borders, with the manual collection of fingerprints and facial scans turned off during busy periods.

Paris Charles De Gaullle is among the main French hubs where passengers have been stuck in long queues, which caused one British family to miss their flight and left them marooned for more than 11 hours on the way home from Disneyland.

Nicolas Paulissen, General Delegate of the Union of French Airports (UAF), has warned that without an extension past September to the provision to waive biometrics checks there would be “huge queues”.

He told The i Paper: “We have to make the automatic border gates compatible with the EES system.”

Geneva

Passengers heading to Geneva since EES launched last year have reported being stuck in queues of up to three hours.

The Swiss hub, Europe’s biggest and busiest airport for skiers, sits on the French border and handles millions of winter passengers heading to the Alps.

In October, Paul Moston, 60, from north London queued for more than two hours with his family after landing at Geneva Airport from Heathrow on Saturday afternoon.

He said there were “angry scenes” as people tried to jump the queue.

Berlin

The head of Berlin Airport, Aletta von Massenbach, has warned non-EU nationals were facing queues of up to two hours from EES, and that the situation is “not bearable over the summer”.

She also highlighted the problem of different countries using different companies to build their EES kiosks

“There are so many sub-systems for each and every member state,” she told the BBC.

“We see that the complexity doesn’t really support smooth processing at the border.”

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