- European airports are rolling out the EU Entry-Exit System, requiring British travelers to give fingerprints, photos and passport scans.
- Delays of 2-3 hours have caused missed flights, especially at airports in Portugal and Milan.
- Airlines and officials are debating whether to suspend checks during peak travel, as summer congestion worsens.
(EUROPE) – European airports are introducing the EU’s Entry-Exit System this summer, and British travelers are encountering long queues, missed flights and technical problems as the new border checks take hold.
The new regime requires British passport holders to register biometric data at dedicated kiosks when they enter EU countries. That process includes fingerprint submission, photo capture and passport scanning.
Delays have stretched to 2-3 hours at major airports, and some passengers have missed flights after getting stuck in the new lines. Technical glitches and understaffing are cited as the main causes, with chaotic scenes reported at multiple European airports, particularly in Portugal.
The Entry-Exit System is a new EU border control system for non-EU travelers entering the Schengen Area. Its rollout marks a change in how border authorities process travelers from Britain, who now face biometric registration on arrival instead of a simpler passport check.
British travelers are among the most exposed to the change because they must stop at dedicated kiosks and submit biometric data before moving on. Airports across Europe are now trying to absorb that extra step during the summer peak, when passenger volumes are already high.
Problems have emerged quickly. Travelers have reported waits of 1-3 hours at Portugal’s Algarve airport, where tourism officials have acknowledged the system is hurting promotional efforts.
One passenger missed her flight from Milan after waiting 3 hours in an EES queue. The delay left her facing extra expenses on top of the missed trip.
Those incidents have turned what was designed as a border management upgrade into a test of airport staffing, equipment and crowd control. The pressure is most acute during busy holiday periods, when even small delays can spread through check-in areas, security lines and departure gates.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary called the system “shambolic” and urged European governments to suspend the checks during the busiest travel periods. He said UK tourists were being unfairly punished for Brexit and pressed for the new controls to be dropped during the summer holiday season and Bank Holiday weekends.
Portuguese officials have already suspended biometric checks during peak travel times at some airports such as Faro. That partial halt has added to pressure for a broader suspension across Europe throughout the summer if congestion continues.
Airports now face two competing demands. Border authorities must enforce the new Entry-Exit System, while airlines and tourism officials want passenger flows to move fast enough to avoid missed departures and damage to holiday traffic.
The disruption has also sharpened attention on the mechanics of the system itself. Each registration requires a passport scan, a photograph and fingerprint collection, which adds time at the border even before technical glitches or staffing shortages come into play.
That extra processing step can become a bottleneck quickly at major airports. A queue that begins at dedicated kiosks can hold up passengers who still need to clear the rest of the airport process, and a delay of several hours leaves little margin for travelers booked on short-haul European flights.
Portugal has become an early focal point because the waits there have coincided with efforts to promote the Algarve as a summer destination. Tourism officials have acknowledged that lines of 1-3 hours cut directly against that message.
Milan offered another warning sign. A passenger who spent 3 hours in the queue missed her flight and had to absorb extra costs, a case that has fed wider concern that the system can turn a standard airport arrival into an unpredictable ordeal.
Airlines have seized on those examples to argue that the current setup is not ready for peak-season demand. O’Leary’s criticism has become one of the clearest industry responses, with Ryanair pushing for checks to be suspended at the times of heaviest traffic rather than enforced uniformly through the summer rush.
Officials in Portugal have shown that temporary relief is possible by suspending biometric checks at Faro during peak periods. Whether other countries follow that approach may determine how much disruption spreads as more airports bring the system online.
The policy change reaches beyond one summer’s airport delays. The Entry-Exit System represents a shift in EU border procedures for non-EU citizens, and British travelers now sit squarely within that framework, facing biometric data collection as a routine part of entry into the Schengen Area.
Industry critics and affected passengers have attached a harsher label to the experience, describing it as “frontier roulette” for British travelers. That phrase reflects the uncertainty now surrounding arrival times, queue lengths and whether a journey proceeds normally or turns into hours of waiting at a kiosk.
Much depends on how quickly airports resolve the operational failures already exposed by the rollout. Technical glitches and understaffing have been identified as the central problems, and the response so far has been uneven, with some locations maintaining checks while others suspend them during the busiest hours.
Summer will provide the first full test. If queues continue to run to 2-3 hours, pressure for wider pauses in biometric registration is likely to build; if airports and border authorities improve staffing and system performance, the new checks may settle into the normal rhythm of travel. For now, British travelers are entering a season in which the first hurdle on arrival may be the border line itself.
